WOMAN'S  THOUGHTS 


ABOUT 


WOMEN. 


-  /  «-7 


, 

BY  THE  AUTHOR  OF 

"JOHN    HALIFAX,    GENTLEMAN," 

"Agatha's  Husband,"  "  The  Ogilvies," 

"  Olive,"  &c.,  &c. 


"Ho  that  good  thinketli,  good  may  do, 
And  God  will  help  him  thereunto : 
For  was  never  good  work  wrought 
Without  beginning  of  good  t 


NEW   YORK: 

RUDD    &    CARLETON,     130    GRAND    STREET 

(BROOKS  BUILDING,  COR.  OF  BROADWAY.) 

MDCCCLXI. 


AUTHOR'S   EDITION 


CRA.IGHEAD,   PRINTEE, 

Carton  ISuiltJing, 

81,83,  and  S5  Centre 


#•8 


PREFACE. 


THESE  "  Thoughts,"  a  portion  of  which  origi- 
nally appeared  in  "  Chambers'  Journal,"  are,  I 
wish  distinctly  to  state,  only  Thoughts.  They 
do  not  pretend  to  solve  any  problems,  to  lay 
down  any  laws,  to  decide  out  of  one  life's 
experience  and  within  the  limits  of  one  volume, 
any  of  those  great  questions  which  have  puz- 
zled generations,  and  will  probably  puzzle,,  gene- 
rations more.  They  lift  the  banner  of  no  party; 
and  assert  the  opinions  of  no  clique.  They  do 
not  even  attempt  an  originality,  which,  in  treat- 
ing of  a  subject  like  the  present,  would  be 
either  dangerous  or  impossible. 

101824 


IV  PREFACE. 

In  this  book,  therefore,  many  women  will 
find  simply  the  expression  of  what  they  have 
themselves,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  often- 
times thought;  and  the  more  deeply,  perhaps, 
because  it  has  never  come  to  the  surface  in 
words  or  writing.  Those  who  do  the  most, 
often  talk — sometimes  think — the  least :  yet 
thinkers,  talkers,  and  doers,  being  in  earnest, 
achieve  their  appointed  end.  The  thinkers  put 
wisdom  into  the  mouth  of  the  speakers,  and 
both  strive  together  to  animate  and  counsel  the 
doers.  Thus  all  work  harmoniously  together; 
and  verily 

"  Was  never  good  work  wrought, 
Without  beginning  of  good  thought." 

In  the  motto  which  I  have  chosen  for  its 
title-page,  lies  at  once  the  purpose  and  preface 
of  this  my  book.  Had  it  not  been  planned 
and  completed,  honestly,  carefully,  solemnly, 
even  fearfully,  with  a  keen  sense  of  all  it  might 
do,  or  leave  undone;  and  did  not  I  believe  it 


PREFACE.  V 

to  be  in  some  degree  a  good  book,  likely  to 
effect  some  good,  I  would  never  have  written 
or  published  it.  How  much  good  it  may  do, 
or  how  little,  is  not  mine  either  to  know,  to 
speculate,  or  to  decide. 

I  have  written  it,  I  hope,  as  humbly  as  con- 
scientiously ;  and  thus  I  leave  if 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  Something  to  Do,  ......       9 

II.  Self-Dependence,    ......     27 

III.  Female  Professions,          .         .         .         .         .     43 

IV.  Female  Handicrafts,         .         .         .         .         .64 
V.  Female  Servants, 86 

VI.  The  Mistress  of  a  Family,        .         .         .         .  1 1 4 

VII.  Female  Friendships,         .         .         .         .         ,  1 5 1 

VIII.  Gossip, 171 

IX.  Women  of  the  World, 197 

X.  Happy  and  Unhappy  Women,          .         .         .228 

XI.  Lost  Women, 255 

XII.  Growing  Old, 280 


A  WOMAN'S  THOUGHTS  ABOUT  WOMEN. 


CHAPTEK   I. 

SOMETHING  TO  DO. 

I  PKEMISE  that  these  thoughts  do  not  concern  married 
women,  for  whom  there  are  always  plenty  to  think, 
and  who  have  generally  quite  enough  to  think  of  for 
themselves  and  those  belonging  to  them.  They  have 
cast  their  lot  for  good  or  ill,  have  realised  in  greater 
or  less  degree  the  natural  destiny  of  our  sex.  They 
must  find  out  its  comforts,  cares,  and  responsibilities, 
and  make  the  best  of  all.  It  is  the  single  women, 
belonging  to  those  supernumerary  ranks,  which  poli- 
tical economists  tell  us,  are  yearly  increasing,  who 
most  need  thinking  about. 

First,  in  their  early  estate,  when  they  have  so  much 


10  Something  to  Do. 

in  their  possession — youth,  bloom,  and  health  giving 
them  that  temporary  influence  over  the  other  sex 
•which,  may  result,  and  is  meant  to  result,  in  a  per 
manent  one.  Secondly,  when  this  sovereignty  is  pass 
ing  away,  the  chance  of  marriage  lessening,  or  wholly 
ended,  or  voluntarily  set  aside,  and  the  individual 
making  up  her  mind  to  that  which  respect  for  Grand 
father  Adam  and  Grandmother  Eve  must  compel  us 
to  admit,  is  an  unnatural  condition  of  being. 

Why  this  undue  proportion  of  single  women  should 
almost  always  result  from  over-civilisation,  and  whe- 
ther, since  society's  advance  is  usually  indicated  by 
the  advance,  morally  and  intellectually,  of  its  women 
— this  progress,  by  raising  women's  ideal  standard  of 
the  "  holy  estate,"  will  not  necessarily  cause  a  decline 
in  the  very  unholy  estate  which  it  is  most  frequently 
made — are  questions  too  wide  to  be  entered  upon 
here.  We  have  only  to  deal  with  facts — with  a  cer- 
tain acknowledged  state  of  things,  perhaps  incapable 
of  remedy,  but  by  no  means  incapable  of  amelioration. 

But,  granted  these  facts,  and  leaving  to  wiser  head? 
the  explanation  of  them — if  indeed  there  be  any — it 


Something  to  Do.  1 1 

seems  advisable*,  or  at  least  allowable,  that  any  woimr, 
who  has  thought  a  good  deal  about  the  matter,  should 
not  fear  to  express  in  word — or  deed,  which  is  bet- 
ter,— any  conclusions,  which  out  of  her  own  observa- 
tion and  experience  she  may  have  arrived  at.  And 
looking  around  upon  the  middle  classes,  which  form 
the  stapler  stock  of  the  community,  it  appears  to  me 
that  the  chief  canker  at  the  root  of  women's  lives  is 
the  want  of  something  to  do. 

Herein  I  refer,  as  this  chapter  must  be  understood 
especially  to  refer,  not  to  those  whom  ill  or  good  for- 
tune— query,  is  it  not  often  the  latter  ? — has  forced  to 
earn  their  bread ;  but  "  to  young  ladies,"  who  have 
never  been  brought  up  to  do  anything.  Tom,  Dick, 
and  Harry,  their  brothers,  has  each  had  it  knocked 
into  him  from  schooldays  that  he  is  to  do  something, 
to  be  somebody.  Counting-house,  shop,  or  college, 
afford  him  a  clear  future  on  which  to  concentrate 
all  his  energies  and  aims.  He  has  got  the  grand  pa- 
bulum of  the  human  soul — occupation.  If  any  inhe- 
rent want  in  his  character,  any  unlucky  combination 
of  circumstances,  nullifies  this,  what  a  poor  creature 


12  Something  to  Do. 

the  man  becomes ! — what  a  dawdling,*moping,  sitting 
over-the-fire,  thumb-twiddling,  lazy,  ill-tempered  ani- 
mal !  And  why  ?  "  Oh,  poor  fellow !  'tis  because 
he  has  got  nothing  to  do  1" 

Yet  this  is  precisely  the  condition  of  women  for  a 
third,  a.  half,  often  the  whole  of  their  existence. 

That  Providence  ordained  it  so — made  men  to 
work,  and  women  to  be  idle — is  a  doctrine  that  few 
will  be  bold  enough  to  assert  openly.  Tacitly  they 
do,  when  they  preach  up  lovely  uselessness,  fascinat- 
ing frivolity,  delicious  helplessness — all  those  polite 
impertinences  and  poetical  degradations  to  which  the 
foolish,  lazy,  or  selfish  of  our  sex  are  prone  to  incline 
an  ear,  but  which  any  woman  of  common  sense  must 
repudiate  as  insulting  not  only  her  womanhood  but 
her  Creator. 

Equally  blasphemous,  and  perhaps  even  more 
harmful,  is  the  outcry  about  "the  equality  of  the 
sexes ;"  the  frantic  attempt  to  force  women,  many 
of  whom  are  either  ignorant  of  or  unequal  for 
their  own  duties — into  the  position  and  duties  of 
men.  A  pretty  state  of  matters  would  ensue! 


Something  to  Do.  13 

Who  that  ever  listened  for  two  hours  to  the  ver- 
bose confused  inanities  of  a  ladies'  committee,  would 
immediately  go  and  give  his  vote  for  a  female  House 
of  Commons?  or  who,  on  the  receipt  of  a  lady's 
letter  of  business — I  speak  of  the  average — would 
henceforth  desire  to  have  our  courts  of  justice  stocked 
with  matronly  lawyers,  and  our  colleges  thronged  by 

"  Sweet  girl-graduates  with  their  golden  hair  ?" 

As  for  finance,  in  its  various  branches — if  you 
pause  to  consider  the  extreme  difficulty  there  always 
is  in  balancing  Mrs.  Smith's  housekeeping-book,  or 
Miss  Smith's  quarterly  allowance,  I  think,  my  dear 
Paternal  Smith,  you  need  not  be  much  afraid  lest 
this  loud  acclaim  for  "  women's  rights"  should  ever 
end  in  pushing  you  from  your  stools,  in  counting- 
house,  college,  or  elsewhere. 

No ;  equality  of  the  sexes  is  not  in  the  nature  of 
things.  Man  and  woman  were  made  for,  and  not 
like  one  another.  One  only  "right"  we  have  to 
assert  in  common  with  mankind — and  that  is  aa 


14  Something  to  Do. 

much   in  our  own  hands   as   theirs — the  right  of 
having  something  to  do. 

That  both  sexes  were  meant  to  labour,  one  'by 
the  sweat  of  his  brow,"  the  other  "in  sorrow  to 
bring  forth" — and  bring  up — "  children  " — cannot, 
I  fancy,  be  questioned.  Nor,  when  the  gradual 
changes  of  the  civilised  world,  or  some  special  des- 
tiny, chosen  or  compelled,  have  prevented  that  first, 
highest,  and  ,in  earlier  times  almost  universal  lot, 
does  this  accidental  fate  in  any  way  abrogate  the 
necessity,  moral,  physical,  and  mental,  for  a  woman 
to  have  occupation  in  other  forms. 

But  how  few  parents  ever  consider  this?  Tom, 
Dick,  and  Harry,  aforesaid,  leave  school  and  plunge 
into  life ;  "  the  girls"  likewise  finish  their  education, 
come  home,  and  stay  at  home.  That  is  enough. 
Nobody  thinks  it  needful  to  waste  a  care  upon 
them.  Bless  them,  pretty  dears,  how  sweet  they 
are!  papa's  nosegay  of  beauty  to  adorn  his  draw- 
ing-room. He  delights  to  give  them  all  they  can 
desire — clothes,  amusements,  society ;  he  and  mamma 
together  take  every  domestic  care  off  their  hands- 


Something  to  Do.  15 

they  have  abundance  of  time  and  nothing  to  occupy 
it ;  plenty  of  money,  and  little  use  for  it ;  pleasure 
without  end,  but  not  one  definite  object  of  interest 
or  employment;  flattery  and  flummery  enough,  but 
no  solid  food  whatever  to  satisfy  mind  or  heart — 
if  they  happen  to  possess  either — at  the  very  emp- 
tiest and  most  craving  season  of  both.  They  have 
literally  nothing  whatever  to  do,  except  to  fall  in 
love ;  which  they  accordingly  do,  the  most  of  them, 
as  fast  as  ever  they  can. 

"  Many  think  they  are  in  love,  when  in  fact  they 
are  only  idle" — is  one  of  the  truest  sayings  of  that 
great  wise  bore,  Imlac,  in  JRasselas,  and  it  has  been 
proved  by  many  a  shipwrecked  life,  of  girls  espe- 
cially. This  "  falling  in  love"  being  usually  a  mere 
delusion  of  the  fancy,  and  not  the  real  thing  at  all, 
the  object  is  generally  unattainable  or  unworthy. 
Papa  is  displeased,  mamma  somewhat  shocked  and 
scandalised ;  it  is  a  "  foolish  affair,"  and  no  matrimo- 
nial results  ensue.  There  only  ensues — what  ? 

A  long,  dreary  season,  of  pain,  real  or  imaginary, 
yet  not  the  less  real  because  it~is  imaginary;  of 


16  Something  to  Do. 

anger  and  mortification,  of  impotent  struggle — against 
unjust  parents,  the  girl  believes,  or,  if  romantically 
inclined,  against  cruel  destiny.  Gradually  this  mood 
\\vurs  out;  she  learns  to  regard  "love"  as  folly,  and 
turns  her  whole  hope  and  aim  to — matrimony !  Ma- 
trimony in  the  abstract ;  not  the  man,  but  any  man — 
any  person  who  will  snatch  her  out  of  the  dulness 
of  her  life,  and  give  her  something  really  to  live  for, 
something  to  nil  up  the  hopeless  blank  of  idleness 
into  which  her  days  are  gradually  sinking. 

Well,  the  man  may  come,  or  he  may  not.  If  the 
latter  melancholy  result  occurs,  the  poor  girl  passes 
into  her  third  stage  of  young-ladyhood,  fritters  or 
mopes  away  her  existence,  sullenly  bears  it,  or  dashes 
herself  blindfold  against  its  restrictions  ;  is  unhappy, 
and  makes  her  family  unhappy ;  perhaps  herself 
cruelly  conscious  of  all  this,  yet  unable  to  find  the 
true  root  of  bitterness  in  her  heart:  not  knowing 
exactly  what  she  wants,  yet  aware  of  a  morbid,  per- 
petual want  of  something  ?  "What  is  it  ? 

Alas !  the  boys  only  have  had  the  benefit  of  thai 
well-known  juvenile  apophthegm,  that 


Something  to  Do.  17 

*  Satan  finds  some  mischief  still 
For  idle  hands  to  do :" 

it  has  never  crossed  the  parents'  minds  that  the 
rhyme  could  apply  to  the  delicate  digital  extremities 
of  the  daughters. 

And  so  their  whole  energies  are  devoted  to  the 
massacre  of  old  Time.  They  prick  him  to  death 
with  crochet  and  embroidery  needles;  strum  him 
deaf  with  piano  and  harp  playing — not  music;  cut 
him  up  with  morning-visitors,  or  leave  his  carcass 
in  ten-minute  parcels  at  every  "  friend's"  house  they 
can  think  of.  Finally,  they  dance  him  defunct  at  all 
sort  of  unnatural  hours ;  and  then,  rejoicing  in  the 
excellent  excuse,  smother  him  in  sleep  for  a  third  of 
the  following  day.  Thus  he  dies,  a  slow,  inoffensive, 
perfectly  natural  death;  and  they  will  never  recog- 
nise his  murder  till,  on  the  confines  of  this  world,  or 
from  the  unknown  shores  of  the  next,  the  question 
meets  them :  "  What  have  you  done  with  Time  ?  " — 
Time,  the  only  mortal  gift  bestowed  equally  on  every 
living  soul,  and  excepting  the  soul,  the  only  mortal 
loss  which  is  totally  irretrievable. 


18  Something  to  Do. 

Yet  tliis  great  sin,  this  irredeemable  Toss,  in  man_y 
women  arises  from  pure  ignorance.  Men  are  taught 
as  3  matter  of  business  to  recognise  the  value  of  time, 
to  apportion  and  employ  it :  women  rarely  or  never. 
The  most  of  them  have  no  definite  appreciation  of  the 
article  as  a  tangible  divisible  commodity  at  all. 
They  would  laugh  at  a  mantua-maker  who  cut  up  a 
dress-length  into  trimmings,  and  then  expected  to 
make  out  of  two  yards  of  silk  a  full  skirt.  Yet  that  the 
same  laws  of  proportion  should  apply  to  time  and  its 
measurements — that  you  cannot  dawdle  away  a  whole 
forenoon,  and  then  attempt  to  cram  into  the  afternoon 
the  entire  business  of  the  day — that  every  minute's 
unpunctuality  constitutes  a  debt  or  a  theffc  (lucky, 
indeed,  if  you  yourself  are  the  only  party  robbed  or 
made  creditor  thereof!) :  these  slight  facts  rarely 
seem  to  cross  the  feminine  imagination. 

It  is  not  their  fault ;  they  have  never  been  "  accus- 
tomed to  business."  They  hear  that  with  men  "time 
is  money;"  but  it  never  strikes  them  that  the  same 
commodity,  equally  theirs,  is  to  them  not  mgney, 
perhaps,  but  life — life  in  its  highest  form  and  noblest 


Something  to  Do.  19 

uses — life  bestowed  upon  every  human  being,  dis- 
tinctly and  individually,  without  reference  to  any 
other  being,  and  for  which  every  one  of  us,  married 
or  unmarried,  woman  as  well  as  man,  will  assuredly 
be  held  accountable  before  God. 

My  young-lady  friends,  of  from  seventeen  upwards, 
your  time  and  the  use  c  f  it  is  as  essential  to  you  as  to 
any  father  or  brother  of  you  all.  You  are  account- 
able for  it  just  as  much  as  he  is.  If  you  waste  it,  you 
waste  not  only  your  substance,  but  your  very  souls — 
not  that  which  is  your  own,  but  your  Maker's. 

Ay,  there  the  core  of  the  matter  lies.  From  the 
hour  that  honest  Adam  and  Eve  were  put  into  the 
garden,  not — as  I  once  heard  some  sensible  preacher 
observe — "not  to  be  idle  in  it,  but  to  dress  it  and  to 
keep  it,"  the  Father  of  all  has  never  put  one  man  or 
one  woman  into  this  world  without  giving  each  some- 
thing to  do  there,  in  it  and  for  it:  some  visible,  tan- 
gible work,  to  be  left  behind  them  when  they  die. 

Young  ladies,  'tis  worth  a  grave  thought — what,  if 
called  away  at  eighteen,  twenty,  or  thirty,  the  most 
of  you  would  leave  behind  you  when  you  die  ?  Much 


2o  Something  to  Do. 

embroidery,  doubtless ;  various  pleasant,  kindly,  ille* 
gible  letters;  a  moderate  store  of  good  deeds;  and  a 
cart-load  of  good  intentions.  Nothing  else — save  your 
uarne  on  a  tombstone,  or  lingering  for  a  few  more 
years  in  family  or  friendly  memory.  "Poor  dear 

!   what  a  nice  lively  girl  she  was!"    For  any 

benefit  accruing  through  you  to  your  generation,  you 
might  as  well  never  have  lived  at  all. 

But  "  what  am  I  to  do  with  my  life  ?"  as  once  asked 
me  one  girl  out  of  the  numbers  who  begin  to  feel 
aware  that,  whether  marrying  or  not,  each  possesses 
an  individual  life,  to  spend,  to  use,  or  to  lose.  And 
herein  lies  the  momentous  question. 

The  difference  between  man's  vocation  and  woman's 
seems  naturally  to  be  this — one  is  abroad,  the  other 
at  home :  one  external,  the  other  internal :  one  active, 
the  other  passive.  He  has  to  go  and  seek  out  his 
path;  hers  usually  lies  close  under  her  feet.  Yet 
each  is  as  distinct,  as  honourable,  as  difficult;  and 
whatever  custom  may  urge  to  the  contrary — if  the  life 
is  meant  to  be  a  worthy  or  a  happy  one — each  must 
resolutely  and  unshrinkingly  be  trod.  But — howf 


Something  to  Do.  71 

A  definite  answer  to  this  question  is  simply  impos- 
sible. So  diverse  are  characters,  tastes,  capabilities, 
and  circumstances,  that  to  lay  down  a  distinct  line  of 
occupation  for  any  six  women  of  one's  own  acquaint- 
ance, would  be  the  merest  absurdity. 

"  Herein  the  patient  must  minister  to  herself." 

To  few  is  the  choice  so  easy,  the  field  of  duty  so  wide, 
that  she  need  puzzle  very  long  over  what  she  ought 
to  do.  Generally — and  this  is  the  best  and  safest 
guide — she  will  find  her  work  lying  very  near  at 
hand :  some  desultory  tastes  to  condense  into  regular 
studies,  some  faulty  household  quietly  to  remodel, 
some  child  to  teach,  or  parent  to  watch  over.  All 
these  being  needless  or  unattainable,  she  may  extend 
her  service  out  of  the  home  into  the  world,  which 
perhaps  never  at  any  time  so  much  needed  the  help 
of  us  women.  And  hardly  one  of  its  charities  and 
duties  can  be  done  so  thoroughly  as  by  a  wise  and 
tender  woman's  hand. 

Here  occurs  another  of  those  plain  rules  which  are 
the  only  guidance  possible  in  the  matter — a  Bible 


22  Something  to  Do. 

rule,  too—"  Whatsoever  thy  hand  findeth  to  do,  do  it  with 
tiiy  miglit"  Question  it  not,  philosophise  not  over  it ! 
— do  it! — only  do  it  I  Thoroughly  and  completely, 
never  satisfied  with  less  than  perfectness.  Be  it  ever 
so  great  or  so  small,  from  the  founding  of  a  village- 
school  to  the  making  of  a  collar — do  it  "with  thy 
might ;"  and  never  Jay  it  aside  till  it  is  done. 

Each  day's  account  ought  to  leave  this  balance — of 
something  done.  Something  beyond  mere  pleasure, 
one's  own  or  another's — though  both  are  good  and 
sweet  in  their  way.  Let  the  superstructure  of  life  be 
enjoyment,  but  let  its  foundation  be  in  solid  work — 
daily,  regular,  conscientious  work :  in  its  essence  and 
results  as  distinct  as  any  "  business"  of  men.  What 
they  expend  for  wealth  and  ambition,  shall  not  we 
offer  for  duty  and  love — the  love  of  our  fellow-crea- 
tures, or,  far  higher,  the  love  of  God?  "Labour  is 
worship,"  says  the  proverb :  also — ay,  necessarily  so 
— labour  is  happiness.  Only  let  us  turn  from  the 
dreary,  colorless  lives  of  the  women,  old  and  young, 
who  have  nothing  to  do,  to  those  of  their  sisters  who 
are  always  busy  doing  something;  who,  believing 


Something  to  Do.  23 

and  accepting  the  universal  law,  that  pleasure  is  the 
mere  accident  of  our  being,  and  work  its  natural  and 
most  holy  necessity,  have  set  themselves  steadily  to 
seek  out  and  fulfil  theirs. 

These  are  they  who  are  little  spoken  of  in  the 
world  at  large.  I  do  not  include  among  them  those 
whose  labour  should  spring  from  an  irresistible 
impulse,  and  become  an  absolute  vocation,  or  it  is  not 
worth  following  at  all — namely,  the  professional 
women,  writers,  painters,  musicians,  and  the  like.  I 
mean  those  women  who  lead  active,  intelligent,  indus- 
trious lives :  lives  complete  in  themselves,  and  there- 
fore not  giving  half  the  trouble  to  their  friends  that 
the  idle  and  foolish  virgins  do — no,  not  even  in  love- 
affairs.  If  love  comes  to  them  accidentally,  (or  rather 
providentially,)  and  happily,  so  much  the  better! — • 
they  will  not  make  the  worse  wives  for  having  been 
busy  maidens.  But  the  "  tender  passion  "  is  not  to 
them  the  one  grand  necessity  that  it  is  to  aimless 
lives ;  they  are  in  no  haste  to  wed :  their  time  is  duly 
filled  up;  and  if  never  married,  still  the  habitual 
faculty  of  usefulness  gives  them  in  themselves  and 


24  Something  to  Do. 

with  others  that  obvious  value,  that  fixed  standing  in 
society,  which  will  for  ever  prevent  their  being  drifted 
away,  like  most  old  maids,  down  the  current  of  the 
new  generation,  even  as  dead  May-flies  down  a 
stream. 

They  have  made  for  themselves  a  place  in  the 
world :  the  harsh,  practical,  yet  not  ill-meaning  world, 
where  all  find  their  level  soon  or  late,  and  where  a 
frivolous  young  maid  sunk  into  a  helpless  old  one, 
can  no  more  expect  to  keep  her  pristine  position  than 
a  last  year's  leaf  to  flutter  upon  a  spring  bough.  But 
an  old  maid  who  deserves  well  of  this  same  world,  by 
her  ceaseless  work  therein,  having  won  her  position, 
keeps  it  to  the  end. 

Not  an  ill  position  either,  or  unkindly ;  often  higher 
and  more  honourable  than  that  of  many  a  mother  of 
ten  sons.  In  households,  where  "Auntie"  is  the 
universal  referee,  nurse,  playmate,  comforter,  and 
counsellor :  in  society,  where  "  that  nice  Miss  So-and- 
so,"  though-  neither  clever,  handsome,  nor  young,  is 
yet  such  a  person  as  can  neither  be  omitted  nor  over- 
looked: in  charitable  works,  where  she  is  "such  a 


Something  to  Do.  25" 

practical  body — always  knows  exactly  what  to  do, 
and  how  to  do  it:"  or  perhaps,  in  her  own  house, 
solitary  indeed,  as  every  single  woman's  home  must 
be,  yet  neither  dull  nor  unhappy  in  itself,  and  the 
nucleus  of  cheerfulness  and  happiness  to  many  an- 
other home  besides. 

She  has  not  married.  Under  lleaven,  her  home, 
her  life,  her  lot,  are  all  of  her  own  making.  Bitter 
or  sweet  they  may  have  been — it  is  not  ours  to 
meddle  with  them,  but  we  can  any  day  see  their  re- 
sults. Wide  or  narrow  as  her  circle  of  influence 
appears,  she  has  exercised  her  power  to  the  uttermost, 
and  for  good.  Whether  great  or  small  her  talents, 
she  has  not  let  one  of  them  rust  for  want  of  use. 
Whatever  the  current  of  her  existence  may  have  been, 
and  in  whatever  circumstances  it  has  placed  her,  she 
has  voluntarily  wasted  no  portion  of  it — not  a  year, 
not  a  month,  not  a  day. 

Published  or  unpublished,  this  woman's  life  is  a 
goodly  chronicle,  the  title-page  of  which  you  may 
read  in  her  quiet  countenance ;  her  manner,  settled, 
cheerful,  and  at  ease;  her  unfailing  interest  in  all 


26  Something  to  Do. 

tilings  and  all  people.  You  will  rarely  find  she  thinks 
much  about  herself;  she  has  never  had  time  for  it. 
And  this  her  life-chronicle,  which,  out  of  its  very 
fulness,  has  taught  her  that  the  more  one  does,  the 
more  one  finds  to  do — she  will  never  flourish  in  your 
face,  or  the  face  of  Heaven,  as  something  uncommonly 
virtuous  and  extraordinary.  She  knows  that,  after 
all,  she  has  simply  done  what  it  was  her  duty  to  do. 

But — and  when  her  place  is  vacant  on  earth,  this 
will  be  said  of  her  assuredly,  both  here  and  Other- 
where— "  She  hath  done  what  she  could.'11 


CHAPTEK  II. 

SELF-DEPENDENCE. 

"  IF  you  want  a  thing  done,  go  yourself;  if  not,  send." 
This  pithy  axiom,  of  which  most  men  know  the 
full  value,  is  by  no  means  so  well  appreciated  by  wo- 
men. One  of  the  very  last  things  we  learn,  often 
through  a  course  of  miserable  helplessness,  heart-burn- 
ings, difficulties,  contumelies,  and  pain,  is  the  lesson, 
taught  to  boys  from  their  school-days,  of  self-depen- 
dence. 

Its  opposite,  either  plainly  or  impliedly,  has  been 
preached  to  us  all  our  lives.  "  An  independent  young 
lady" — "a  woman  who  can  take  care  of  herself" — and 
such-like  phrases,  have  become  tacitly  suggestive  of 
hoydenishness,  coarseness,  strong-mindedness,  down 
to  the  lowest  depth  of  bloomerism,  cigarette-sn^oking, 
and  talking  slang. 

And  there  are  many  good  reasons,  ingrained  in  the 


28  Self-Dependence. 

very  tenderest  core  of  woman's  nature,  why  this  should 
be.  We  are  "  the  weaker  vessel " — whether  acknow- 
ledging it  or  not,  most  of  us  feel  this:  it  becomes 
man's  duty  and  delight  to  show  us  honour  accord- 
ingly. And  this  honour,  dear  as  it  may  be  to  him 
to  give,  is  still  dearer  to  us  to  receive. 

Dependence  is  in  itself  an  easy  and  pleasant  thing : 
dependence  upon  one  we  love  being  perhaps  the  very 
sweetest  thing  in  the  world.  To  resign  one's  self 
totally  and  contentedly  into  the  hands  of  another ;  to 
have  no  longer  any  need  of  asserting  one's  rights  or 
one's  personality,  knowing  that  both  are  as  precious 
to  that  other  as  they  ever  were  to  ourselves ;  to  cease 
taking  thought  about  one's  self  at  all,  and  rest  safe,  at 
ease,  assured  that  in  great  things  and  small  we  shall 
be  guided  and  cherished,  guarded  and  helped — in 
fact,  thoroughly  "taken  care  of" — how  delicious  is 
all  this !  So  delicious,  that  it  seems  granted  to  very 
few  of  us,  and  to  fewer  still  as  a  permanent  condition 
of  being. 

Were  it  our  ordinary  lot,  were  every  woman  living 
to  have  either  father,  brother,  or  husband,  to  watch 


Self-Dependence.  29 

over  and  protect  her,  then,  indeed,  the  harsh  but  salu 
tarj  doctrine  of  self-dependence  need  never  be  heard 
of.  But  it  is  not  so.  In  spite  of  the  pretty  ideals  of 
poets,  the  easy  taken-for-granted  truths  of  old-fashioned 
educators  of  female  youth,  this  fact  remains  patent  to 
any  person  of  common  sense  and  experience,  that  in 
the  present  day,  whether  voluntarily  or  not,  one-half 
of  our  women  are  obliged  to  take  care  of  themselves — 
obliged  to  look  solely  to  themselves  for  maintenance, 
position,  occupation,  amusement,  reputation,  life. 

Of  course  I  refer  to  the  large  class  for  which  these 
Thoughts  are  meant — the  single  women ;  who,  while 
most  needing  the  exercise  of  self-dependence,  are  usu- 
ally the  very  last  in  whom  it  is  inculcated,  or  even  per- 
mitted. From  babyhood  they  are  given  to  understand 
that  helplessness  is  feminine  and  beautiful ;  helpful- 
ness— except  in  certain  received  forms  of  manifesta- 
tion— unwomanly  and  ugly.  The  boys  may  do  a 
thousand  things  which  are  "  not  proper  for  little  girls." 

And  herein,  I  think,  lies  the  great  mistake  at  the 
root  of  most  women's  education,  that  the  law  of  their 
existence  is  held  to  be,  not  Eight,  but  Propriety ;  a 


3C  Self-Dependence. 

;i  received  notion  of  womanhood,  which  has 
descended  from  certain  excellent  great-grandmothers, 
admirably  suited  for  some  sorts  of  their  descendants, 
but  totally  ignoring  the  fact  that  each  sex  is  composed 
of  individuals,  differing  in  character  almost  as  much 
from  one  another  as  from  the  opposite  sex.  For  do 
we  not  continually  find  womanish  men  and  masculine 
women  ?  and  some  of  the  finest  types  of  character  we 
have  known  among  both  sexes,  are  they  not  often 
those  who  combine  the  qualities  of  both  ?  Therefore, 
there  must  be  somewhere  a  standard  of  abstract  right, 
including  manhood  and  womanhood,  and  yet  supe- 
rior to  either.  One  of  the  first  of  its  common  laws, 
or  common  duties,  is  this  of  self-dependence. 

We  women  are,  no  less  than  men,  each  of  us  a  dis- 
tinct existence.  In  two  out  of  the  three  great  facts  of 
our  life  we  are  certainly  independent  agents,  and  all 
our  life  long  we  are  accountable  only,  in  the  highest 
sense,  to  our  own  souls,  and  the  Maker  of  them.  Is 
it  natural,  is  it  right  even,  that  we  should  be  expected 
and  be  ready  enough,  too,  for  it  is  much  the  easiest 
way — to  hang  our  consciences,  duties,  actions,  opinions. 


Self-Dependence.  31 

upon  some  one  else — some  individual,  or  some  aggre- 
gate of  individuals  yclept  Society  ?  Is  this  Society 
to  draw  up  a  code  of  regulations  as  to  what  is  propel 
for  us  to  do,  and  what  not  ?  Which  latter  is  suppos- 
ed to  be  done  for  us  ;  if  not  done,  or  there  happens  to 
be  no  one  to  do  it,  is  it  to  "fee  left  undone  ?  Alack, 
most  frequently,  whether  or  not  it  ought  to  be,  it  is ! 

Every  one's  experience  may  furnish  dozens  of 
cases  of  poor  women  suddenly  thrown  adrift — widows 
with  families,  orphan  girls,  reduced  gentlewomen — • 
clinging  helplessly  to  every  male  relative  or  friend 
they  have,  year  after  year,  sinking  deeper  in  poverty 
or  debt,  eating  the  bitter  bread  of  charity,  or  com- 
pelled to  bow  an  honest  pride  to  the  cruellest  humilia- 
tions, every  one  of  which  might  have  been  spared 
them  by  the  early  practice  of  self-dependence. 

I  once  heard  a  lady  say — a  tenderly-reared  and 
tender-hearted  woman — that  if  her  riches  made  them- 
selves wings,  as  in  these  times  riches  will,  she  did  not 
know  anything  in  the  world  that  she  could  turn  her 
hand  to,  to  keep  herself  from  starving.  A  more  piti- 
able, and,  in  some  sense,  humbling  confession,  could 


32  Self-Dependence. 

hardly  have  been  made;  yet  it  is  that  not  of  nun 
(1  rods,  but  of  thousands,  in  England. 

Sometimes  exceptions  arise :  here  is  one : — 
Two  young  women,  well  educated  and  refined, 
were  left  orphans,  their  father  dying  just  when  his 
business  promised  to  realise  a  handsome  provision  for 
his  family.  It  was  essentially  a  man's  business — in 
many  points  of  view,  decidedly  an  unpleasant  one. 
Of  course  friends  thought  "the  girls"  must  give  it  up, 
go  out  as  governesses,  depend  on  relatives,  or  live  in 
what  genteel  poverty  the  sale  of  the  good- will  might 
allow.  But  the  "girls"  were  wiser.  They  argued: 
"  If  we  had  been  boys,  it  would  have  been  all  right ; 
we  should  have  carried  on  the  business,  and  provided 
for  our  mother  and  the  whole  family.  Being  women, 
we'll  try  it  still.  It  is  nothing  wrong ;  it  is  simply 
disagreeable.  It  needs  common  sense,  activity,  dili- 
gence, and  self-dependence.  "We  have  all  these ;  and 
what  we  have  not,  we  will  learn."  So  these  sensible 
and  well-educated  young  women  laid  aside  their  pretty 
uselessness  and  pleasant  idleness,  and  set  to  work. 
FTappily,  the  trade  was  one  that  required  no  personal 


Self-Dependence.  23 

publicity;  but  they  had  to  keep  the  books,  manage 
the  stock,  choose  and  superintend  fit  agents — to  dc 
things  difficult,  not  to  say  distasteful,  to  most  women., 
and  resign  enjoyments  that,  to  women  of  their  refine- 
ment, must  have  cost  daily  self-denial.  Yet  they  did 
it ;  they  filled  their  father's  place,  sustained  their  deli- 
cate mother  in  ease  and  luxury,  never  once  compro- 
mising their  womanhood  by  their  work,  but  rather 
ennobling  the  work  by  their  doing  of  it. 

Another  case — different,  and  yet  alike.  A  young 
girl,  an  elder  sister,  had  to  receive  for  step-mother  a 
woman  who  ought  never  to  have  been  any  honest 
man's  wife.  Not  waiting  to  be  turned  out  of  her 
father's  house,  she  did  a  most  daring  and  "  improper  " 
thing — she  left  it,  taking  with  her  the  brothers  and 
sisters,  whom  by  this  means  only  she  believed  she 
could  save  from  harm.  She  settled  them  in  a 
London  lodging,  and  worked  for  them  as  a  daily 
governess.  "Heaven  helps  those  who  help  them- 
selves." From  that  day  this  girl  never  was  dependent 
upon  any  human  being ;  while  during  a  long  life  she 

has  helped  and  protected  more  than  I  could  count — 

2* 


34  Self-Dependence. 

pupils  and  pupils'  children,  friends  and  their  children, 
besides  brothers  and  sisters-in-law,  nephews  and 
n'u res,  down  to  the  slenderest  tie  of  blood,  or  even 
mere  strangers.  And  yet  she  has  never  been  any- 
thing but  a  poor  governess,  always  independent, 
always  able  to  assist  others — because  she  never  was 
and  never  will  be  indebted  to  any  one,  except  for 
love  while  she  lives,  and  for  a  grave  when  she  dies. 
May  she  long  possess  the  one  and  want  the  other ! 

And  herein  is  answered  the  "cui  lono?"  of  self- 
dependence,  that  its  advantages  end  not  with  the 
original  possessor.  In  this  much-suffering  world,  a 
woman  who  can  take  care  of  herself  can  always  take 
care  of  other  people.  She  not  only  ceases  to  be  an 
unprotected  female,  a  nuisance  and  a  drag  upon 
society,  but  her  working-value  therein  is  doubled 
and  trebled,  and  society  respects  her  accordingly. 
Even  her  kindly  male  friends,  no  longer  afraid  that 
when  the  charm  to  their  vanity  of  "  being  of  use  to  a 
lady  "  has  died  out,  they  shall  be  saddled  with  a  ptr- 
petual  claimant  for  all  manner  of  advice  and  assist 
ance ;  the  first  not  always  followed,  and  the  second 


Self-Dependence.  35 

often  accepted  without  gratitude — even  they  yield  an 
involuntary  consideration  to  a  lady  who  gives  them 
no  more  trouble  than  she  can  avoid,  and  is  always 
capable  of  thinking  and  acting  for  herself,  so  far  as 
the  natural  restrictions  and  decorums  of  her  sex 
allow.  True,  these  have  their  limits,  which  it  would 
be  folly,  if  not  worse,  for  her  to  attempt  to  pass ;  but 
a  certain  fine  instinct,  which,  we  flatter  ourselves,  is 
native  to  us  women,  will  generally  indicate  the  divi- 
sion between  brave  self-reliance  and  bold  assumption. 
Perhaps  the  line  is  most  easily. drawn,  as  in  most 
difficulties,  at  that  point  where  duty  ends  and  plea- 
sure begins.  Thus,  we  should  respect  one  who,  on  a 
mission  of  mercy  or  necessity,  went  through  the  low- 
est portions  of  St.  Giles'  or  the  Gallowgate  ;  we  should 
be  rather  disgusted  if  she  did  it  for  mere  amusement 
or  bravado.  All  honour  to  the  poor  sempstress  or 
governess  who  traverses  London  streets  alone,  at  all 
hours  of  day  or  night,  unguarded  except  by  her  own 
modesty ;  but  the  strong-minded  female  who  would 
venture  on  a  solitary  expedition  to  investigate  the 
humours  of  Cremorne  Gardens  or  Greenwich  Fair, 


36  Self-Dependence. 

though  perfectly  "  respectable,"  would  be  an  exceed 
ingly  condemnable  sort  of  personage.  There  are 
many  things  at  which,  as  mere  pleasures,  a  woman 
has  a  right  to  hesitate;  there  is  no  single  duty,  whe- 
ther or  not  it  lies  in  the  ordinary  line  of  her  sex,  from 
which  she  ought  to  shrink,  if  it  be  plainly  set  before 
her. 

Those  who  are  the  strongest  advocates  for  the  pass- 
ive character  of  our  sex,  its  claims,  proprieties,  and 
restrictions,  are,  I  have  often  noticed,  if  the  most  sen- 
sitive, not  always  the  justest  or  most  generous.  I 
have  seen  ladies,  no  longer  either  young  or  pretty, 
shocked  at  the  idea  of  traversing  a  street's  length  at 
night,  yet  never  hesitate  at  being  "  fetched"  by  some 
female  servant,  who  was  both  young  and  pretty,  and 
to  whom  the  danger  of  the  expedition,  or  of  the  late 
return  alone,  was  by  far  the  greater  of  the  two.  I 
have  known  anxious  mothers,  who  would  not  for 
worlds  be  guilty  of  the  indecorum  of  sending  their 
daughters  unchaperoned  to  the  theatre  or  a  ball— and 
very  right,  too ! — yet  send  out  some  other  woman's 
young  daughter,  at  eleven  P.  M.,  to  the  stand  for  a  cab 


Self-Dependence.  37 

or  to  the  public-house  for  a  supply  of  beer.  It  nevei 
strikes  them  that  the  doctrine  of  female  dependence 
extends  beyond  themselves,  whom  it  suits  so  easily, 
and  to  whom  it  saves  so  much  trouble ;  that  either 
every  woman,  be  she  servant  or  mistress,  sempstress 
or  fine  lady,  should  receive  the  "  protection"  suitable 
to  her  degree ;  or  that  each  ought  to  be  educated  into 
equal  self-dependence.  Let  us,  at  least,  hold  the 
balance  of  justice  even,  nor  allow  an  over-considera- 
tion for  the  delicacy  of  one  woman  to  trench  on  the 
rights,  conveniences,  and  honest  feelings  of  another. 

We  must  help  ourselves.  In  this  curious  phase  of 
social  history,  when  marriage  is  apparently  ceasing  to 
become  the  common  lot,  and  a  happy  marriage  the 
most  uncommon  lot  of  all,  we  must  educate  our  maid- 
ens into  what  is  far  better  than  any  blind  clamor  for 
ill-defined  "  rights  " — into  what  ought  always  to  be  the 
foundation  of  rights — duties.  And  there  is  one,  the 
silent  practice  of  which  will  secure  to  them  almost 
every  right  they  can  fairly  need — the  duty  of  self-de- 
pendence. Not  after  any  Amazonian  fashion;  no 
mutilating  of  fair  womanhood  in  order  to  assume  the 


38  Self-Dependence. 

unnatural  armour  of  men;  but  simply  by  the  full 
exercise  of  every  faculty,  physical,  moral,  and  intel- 
lectual, with  which  Heaven  has  endowed  us  all, 
severally  and  collectively,  in  different  degrees ;  allow- 
ing no  one  to  rust  or  to  lie  idle,  merely  because  their 
owner  is  a  woman.  And,  above  all,  let  us  lay  the 
foundation  of  all  real  womanliness  by  teaching  our 
girls  from  their  cradle  that  the  priceless  pearl  of  deco- 
rous beauty,  chastity  of  mind  as  well  as  body,  exists 
in  themselves  alone ;  that  a  single-hearted  and  pure- 
minded  woman  may  go  through  the  world,  like 
Spenser's  Una,  suffering,  indeed,  but  never  ,defence- 
less;  foot-sore  and  smirched,  but  never  tainted; 
exposed,  doubtless,  to  many  trials,  yet  never  either 
degraded  or  humiliated,  unless  by  her  own  acts  she 
humiliates  herself. 

For  heaven's  sake — for  the  sake  of  "  womanhede," 
the  most  heavenly  thing  next  angelhood,  (as  men  tell 
us  when  they  are  courting  us,  and  which  it  depends 
upon  ourselves  to  make  them  believe  in  all  their 
lives) — young  girls,  trust  yourselves;  rely -on  your- 
selves!  Be  assured  that  no  outward  circumstances 


Self-Dependence.  39 

will  harm  you  while  you  keep  the  jewel  of  purity  in 
your  bosom,  and  are  ever  ready  with  the  steadfast, 
clean  right  hand,  of  which,  till  you  use  it,  you  never 
know  the  strength,  though  it  be  only  a  woman's  hand. 

Fear  not  the  world :  it  is  often  juster  to  us  than  we 
are  to  ourselves.  If  in  its  harsh  jostlings  the  "  weaker 
goes  to  the  wall " — as  so  many  allege  is  sure  to  hap- 
pen to  a  woman — you  will  almost  always  find  that 
this  is  not  merely  because  of  her  sex,  but  from  some 
inherent  qualities  in  herself,  which,  existing  either  in 
woman  or  man,  would  produce  just  the  same  result, 
pitiful  and  blameable,  but  usually  more  pitiful  than 
blameable.  The  world  is  hard  enough,  for  two-thirds 
of  it  are  struggling  for  the  dear  life — "  each  for  him- 
self, and  de'il  tak  the  hindmost;"  but  it  has  a  rough 
sense  of  moral  justice  after  all.  And  whosoever 
denies  that,  spite  of  all  hindrances  from  individual 
wickedness,  the  right  shall  not  ultimately  prevail, 
impugns  not  alone  human  justice,  but  the  justice  of 
God. 

The  age  of  chivalry,  with  all  its  benefits  and  harm- 
fulness,  is  gone  by,  for  us  women.  We  cannot  now 


40  Self-Dependence. 

have  men  for  our  knights-errant,  expending  blood 
and  life  for  our  sake,  while  we  have  nothing  to  dc 
but  sit  idle  on  balconies,  and  drop  flowers  on  half- 
dead  victors  at  tilt  and  tourney.  Nor,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  we  dressed-up  dolls,  pretty  playthings,  to 
be  fought  and  scrambled  for — petted,  caressed,  or 
flung  out  of  window,  as  our  several  lords  and  masters 
may  please.  Life  is  much  more  equally  divided  be- 
tween us  and  them.  We  are  neither  goddesses  nor 
slaves  ;  they  are  neither  heroes  nor  semi-demons  :  we 
just  plod  on  together,  men  and  women  alike,  on  the 
same  road,  where  daily  experience  illustrates  Hudi- 
bras's  keen  truth,  that 

"  The  value  of  a  thing 
Is  just  as  much  as  it  will  bring." 

And  our  value  is — exactly  what  we  choose  to  make 
it. 

Perhaps  at  no  age  since  Eve's  were  women  rated 
so  exclusively  at  their  own  personal  worth,  apart 
from  poetic  flattery  or  tyrannical  depreciation ;  at  no 


Self-Dependence.  ^, 

time  in  the  world's  history  judged  so  entirely  by  theii 
individual  merits,  and  respected  according  to  the  re- 
spect which  they  earned  for  themselves.  And  shall 
we  value  ourselves  so  meanly  as  to  consider  this 
unjust?  Shall  we  not  rather  accept  our  position, 
difficult  indeed,  and  requiring  from  us  more  than  the 
world  ever  required  before,  but  from  its  very  difficulty 

rendered  the  more  honourable  ? 

• 

Let  us  not  be  afraid  of  men ;  for  that,  I  suppose, 
lies  at  the  root  of  all  these  amiable  hesitations. 
"Gentlemen  don't  like  such  and  such  things."  "Gen- 
tlemen fancy  so  and  so  unfeminine."  My  dear  little 
foolish  cowards,  do  you  think  a  man — a  good  man,  in 
any  relation  of  life,  ever  loves  a  woman  the  more  for 
reverencing  her  the  less  ?  or  likes  her  better  for  trans- 
ferring all  her  burdens  to  his  shoulders,  and  pinning 
her  conscience  to  his  sleeve?  Or,  even  supposing 
he  did  like  it,  is  a  woman's  divinity  to  be  man — or 
God? 

And  here,  piercing  to  the  Foundation  of  all  truth — 
I  think  we  may  find  the  truth  concerning  self-de- 
pendence, which  is  only  real  and  only  valuable  when 


42  Self-Dependence. 

its  root  is  not  in  self  at  all;  when  its  strength  is 
drawn  not  from  man,  but  from  that  Higher  and 
Diviner  Source  whence  every  individual  soul  pro- 
ceeds, and  to  which  alone  it  is  accountable.  As  soon 
as  any  woman,  old  or  young,  once  feels  that,  not  as  a 
vague  sentimental  belief,  but  as  a  tangible,  practical 
law  of  life,  all  weakness  ends,  all  doubt  departs :  she 
recognises  the  glory,  honour,  and  beauty  of  her  exist- 
ence ;  she  is  no  longer  afraid  of  its  pains ;  she  desires 
not  to  shift  one  atom  of  its  responsibilities  to  another. 
She  is  content  to  take  it  just  as  it  is,  from  the  hands 
of  the  All-Father ;  her  only  care  being  so  to  fulfil  it, 
that  while  the  world  at  large  may  recognise  and  pro- 
fit by  her  self-dependence,  she  herself,  knowing  that 
the  utmost  strength  lies  in  the  deepest  humility, 
recognises,  solely  and  above  all,  her  dependence  upon 
God. 


CHAPTER  III. 

FEMALE  PROFESSIONS. 

GRANTED  the  necessity  of  something  to  do,  and  the 
self-dependence  required  for  its  achievement,  we  may 
go  on  to  the  very  obvious  question — what  is  a  woman 
to  do? 

A  question  more  easily  asked  than  answered ;  and 
the  numerous  replies  to  which,  now  current  in  book, 
pamphlet,  newspaper,  and  review,  suggesting  every- 
thing possible  and  impossible,  from  compulsory  wife- 
hood  in  Australia  to  voluntary  watchmaking  at  home, 
do  at  present  rather  confuse  the  matter  than  other- 
wise. No  doubt,  out  of  these  "many  words,"  which 
"  darken  speech,"  some  plain  word  or  two  will  one 
day  take  shape  in  action,  so  as  to  evolve  a  practical 
good.  In  the  meantime,  it  does  no  harm  to  have  the 
muddy  pond  stirred  up  a  little;  any  disturbance  is 
better  than  stagnation. 


44  Female  Professions. 

Those  Thoughts — however  desultory  and  unsatis- 
factory, seeing  the  great  need  there  is  for  deeds  rather 
than  words — are  those  of  a  "  working  "  woman,  who 
has  been  su:b  all  her  life,  having  opportunities  of 
comparing  the  experience  of  other  working  women 
with  her  own:  she,  therefore,  at  least  escapes  the 
folly  of  talking  of  what  she  knows  nothing  about. 

Female  professions,  as  distinct  from  what  may  be 
termed  female  handicrafts,  which  merit  separate  classi- 
fication and  discussion,  may,  I  think,  be  thus  divided ; 
the  instruction  of  youth ;  painting  or  art ;  literature ; 
and  the  vocation  of  public  entertainment — including 
actresses,  singers,  musicians,  and  the  like. 

The  first  of  these,  being  a  calling  universally 
wanted,  and  the  easiest  in  which  to  win,  at  all  events, 
daily  bread,  is  the  great  chasm  into  which  the  help- 
less and  penniless  of  our  sex  generally  plunge ;  and 
this  indiscriminate  Quintus  Curtiusism,  so  far  from 
rilling  up  the  gulf,  widens  it  every  hour.  It  must  be 
so,  while  young  women  of  all  classes  and  all  degrees 
of  capability  rush  into  governessing,  as  many  young 
men  enter  the  church, — because  they  think  it  a 


Female  Professions.  45 

'  respectable  "  profession  jo  get  on  in,  and  are  fit  for 
lothing  else.  Thus  the  most  important  of  ours,  and 
he  highest  of  all  men's  vocations,  are  both  degraded 
— in  so  far  as  they  can  be  degraded — by  the  unworthi- 
icss  and  incompetency  of  their  professors. 

If,  in  the  most  solemn  sense,  not  one  woman  in  five 
.housand  is  fit  to  be  a  mother,  we  may  safely  say  that 
lot  two  out  of  that  number  are  fit  to  be  governesses. 
Consider  all  that  the  office  implies :  very  many  of  a 
nother's  duties,  with  the  addition  of  considerable 
nental  attainments,  firmness  of  character,  good  sense, 

rood  temper,  good  breeding  ;   patience,  gentleness, 

. 
.oving-kindness.     In  short,  every  quality  that  goes  to 

nake  a  perfect  woman,  is  required  of  her  who  pre- 
sumes to  undertake  the  education  of  one  single  little 
ihild 

Does  any  one  pause  to  reflect  what  a  "little  child" 
.s?  Not  sentimentally,  as  a  creature  to  be  philoso- 
phised upon,  painted  and  poetised ;  nor  selfishly,  as  a 
iissable,  scoldable,  sugar-plum-feedable  plaything ; 
but  as  a  human  soul  and  body,  to  be  moulded,  in- 
structed, and  influenced,  in  order  that  it  in  its  turn 


46  Female  Professions. 

may  mould,  Instruct,  and  influence  unborn  genera 
tions.  And  yet,  in  face  of  this  awful  responsibility, 
wherein  each  deed  and  word  of  hers  may  bear  fruit, 
good  or  ill,  to  indefinite  ages,  does  nearly  every  edu- 
cated gentlewoman  thrown  upon  her  own  resources, 
nearly  every  half-educated  "  young  person"  who 
wishes  by  that  means  to  step  out  of  her  own  sphere 
into  the  one  above  it,  enter  upon  the  vocation  of  a 
governess. 

Whether  it  really  is  her  vocation,  she  never  stops 
to  think ;  and  yet,  perhaps,  in  no  calling  is  a  personal 

bias  more  indispensable.     For  knowledge,  and  the 

• 

power  of  imparting  it  intelligibly,  are  two  distinct 
and  often  opposite  qualities  ;  the  best  student  by  no 
means  necessarily  makes  the  best  teacher :  nay,  when 
both  faculties  are  combined,  they  are  sometimes 
neutralised  by  some  fault  of  disposition,  such  as  want 
of  temper  or  of  will.  And  allowing  al]  these, 
granting  every  possible  intellectual  and  practical 
competency,  there  remains  still  doubtful  the  moral 
influence,  which,  according  to  the  source  from  which 
it  springs,  may  ennoble  or  corrupt  a  child  for  life. 


Female   Professions.  47 

All  these  are  facts  so  trite  and  so  patent,  that  one 
would  almost  feel  it  superfluous  to  state  them,  did  we 
not  see  how  utterly  they  are  ignored  day  by  day  by 
even  sensible  people;  how  parents  go  on  lavishing 
expense  on  their  house,  dress,  and  entertainments — 
everything  but  the  education  of  their  children ;  send- 
ing their  boys  to  cheap  boarding-schools,  and  engaging 
for  their  daughters  governesses  at  201.  a  year,  or  daily 
tuition  at  sixpence  an  hour ;  and  how,  as  a  natural 
result,  thousands  6f  incapable  girls,  and  ill-informed, 
unscrupulous  women,  go  on  professing  to  teach  every- 
thing under  the  sun,  adding  lie  upon  lie,  and  mean- 
ness upon  meanness — often  through  no  voluntary 
wickedness,  but  sheer  helplessness,  because  they  must 
either  do  that  or  starve ! 

Yet,  all  the  while  we  expect  our  rising  generation 
to  turn  out  perfection ;  instead  of  which  we  find  it — 
what? 

I  do  solemnly  aver,  having  seen  more  than  one 
generation  of  young  girls  grow  up  into  womanhood 
— that  the  fairest  and  best  specimens  of  our  sex  that 
T  have  ever  known  have  been  among  those  who  have 


48  Female  Professions. 

never  gone  to  school,  or  scarcely  ever  had  a  regular 
governess. 

Surely  such  a  fact  as  this — I  put  it  to  general  expe- 
rience, whether  it  is  not  a  fact  ? — indicates  some  great 
flaw  in  the  carrying  out  of  this  large  branch  of 
women's  work.  How  is  it  to  be  remedied?  I 
believe,  like  all  reformations,  it  must  begin  at  the 
root — with  the  governesses  themselves. 

Unless  a  woman  has  a  decided  pleasure  and  facility 
in  teaching,  an  honest  knowledge  of  everything  she 
professes  to  impart,  a  liking  for  children,  and  above 
all,  a  strong  moral  sense  of  her  responsibility  towards 
them,  for  her  to  attempt  to  enrol  herself  in  the 
scholastic  order  is  absolute  profanation.  Better  turn 
shopwoman,  needlewoman,  lady's-maid — even  become 
a  decent  housemaid,  and  learn  how  to  sweep  a  floor, 
than  belie  her  own  soul,  and  peril  many  other  souls, 
by  entering  upon  what  is,  or  ought  to  be,  a  female 
"  ministry,"  unconsecrated  for,  and  incapable  of  the 
work. 

"But,"  say  they,  "work  we  must  have.  Comjie« 
tition  is  so  great,  that  if  we  did  not  profess  to  do 


Female  Professions.  49 

everything,  it  would  be  supposed  we  could  do  no- 
thing :  and  so  we  should  starve." 

/ 
Yet,  what  is  competition  ?     A  number  of  people 

attempting  to  do  what  most  of  them  can  only  half  do, 
and  some  cannot  do  at  all — thereby  "cutting  one 
another's  throats,"  as  the  saying  is,  so  long  as  their 
incapacity  is  concealed ;  when  it  is  found  out,  starv- 
ing. There  may  be  exceptions,  from  exceeding  mis- 
fortune and  the  like — but  in  the  long  run,  I  believe 
it  will  be  found  that  few  women,  really  competent  to 
what  they  undertake,  be  it  small  or  great,  starve  for 
want  of  work  to  do.  So,  in  this  case,  no  influence  is 
so  deeply  felt  in  a  house,  or  so  anxiously  retained,  if 
only  from  self-interest,  as  the  influence  of  a  good 
governess  over  the  children ;  among  the  innumerable 
throng  of  teachers,  there  is  nothing  more  difficult  to 
find — or  more  valuable  when  found,  to  judge  by  the 
high  terms  asked  and  obtained  by  many  professors — 
than  a  lady  who  can  teach  only  a  single  thing,  solidly, 
conscientiously,  and  well. 

In  this,  as  in  most  social  questions,  where  to  theo- 
rise is  easy  and  to  practise  very  difficult,  it  will  ofter 

3 


jo  Female  Professions. 

be  found  that  the  silent  undermining  of  an  evil  is 
safer  than  the  loud  outcry  against  it.  If  every  go- 
verness, so  far  as  her  power  extends,  would  strive  to 
elevate  the  character  of  her  profession  by  elevating 
its  members,  many  of  the  unquestionable  wrongs  and 
miseries  of  governess-ship  would  gradually  right 
themselves.  A  higher  standard  of  capability  would 
weed  out  much  cumbersome  mediocrity ;  and,  compe- 
tition lessened,  the  value  of  labour  would  rise.  I  say 
"  the  value  of  labour,"  because,  when  we  women  do 
work,  we  must  learn  to  rate  ourselves  at  no  ideal  and 
picturesque  value,  but  simply  as  labourers — fair  and 
honest  competitors  in  the  field  of  the  world ;  and  our 
wares  as  mere  merchandise,  where  money's  worth 
alone  brings  money,  or  has  any  right  to  expect  it. 

This  applies  equally  to  the  two  next  professions, 
art  and  literature.  I  put  art  first,  as  being  the  most 
difficult — perhaps,  in  its  highest  form,  almost  impos- 
sible to  women.  There  are  many  reasons  for  this ;  in 
the  course  of  education  necessary  for  a  painter,  in  the 
not  unnatural  repugnance  that  is  felt  to  women's 
drawing  from  "the  life,"  attending  anatomical  dis- 


Female   Professions.  51 

sections,  and  so  on — all  which  studies  are  indis- 
pensable to  one  who  would  plumb  the  depths  and 
scale  the  heights  of  the  most  arduous  of  the  liberal 
arts.  Whether  any  woman  will  ever  do  this,  remains 
yet  to  be  proved.  Meantime,  many  lower  and  yet 
honourable  positions  are  open  to  female  handlers  of 
the  brush. 

But  in  literature  we  own  no  such  boundaries ;  there 
we  meet  men  on  level  ground — and,  shall  I  say  it  ? — 

we  do  often  beat  them  in  their  own  field.     We  are 

f 

acute  and  accurate  historians,  clear  explanators  of  sci- 
ence, especially  successful  in  imaginative  works,  and 
within  the  last  year  Aurora  Leigh  has  proved  that  we 
can  write  as  great  a  poem  as  any  man  among  them 
all.  Any  publisher's  list,  any  handful  of  weekly  or 
monthly  periodicals,  can  testify  to  our  power  of  enter- 
ing boldly  on  the  literary  profession,  and  pursuing  it 
wholly,  self-devotedly,  and  self-reliantly,  thwarted  by 
no  hardships,  and  content  with  no  height  short  of  the 
highest. 

So  much  for  the  best  of  us — women  whose  work 
will  float  down  the  ages  safe  and  sure ;  there  is  no  need 


52  Female  Professions. 

to  speak  of  it  or  them.  But  there  is  another  second 
ary  class  among  us,  neither  "geniuses"  nor  ordinary 
tt  omen — aspiring  to  both  destinies,  and  usually  achiev- 
ing neither:  of  these  it  is  necessary  to  say  a  word. 

In  any  profession,  there  is  nothing,  short  of  being 
absolutely  evil,  which  is  so  injurious,  so  fatal,  as 
mediocrity.  To  the  amateur  who  writes  "sweetly" 
or  paints  "prettily,"  her  work  is  mere  recreation; 
and  though  it  may  be  less  improving  for  the  mind 
to  do  small  things  on  your  own  account,  than  to  be 
satisfied  with  appreciating  the  greater  doings  of  other 
people,  still,  it  is  harmless  enough,  if  it  stops  there. 
But  all  who  leave  domestic  criticism  to  plunge  into 
the  open  arena  of  art — I  use  the  word  in  its  widest 
sense — must  abide  by  art's  severest  canons.  One  of 
these  is,  that  every  person  who  paints  a  common- 
place picture,  or  writes  a  mediocre  book,  contributes 
temporarily — happily,  only  temporarily — to  lower 
the  standard  of  public  taste,  fills  unworthily  some 
better  competitor's  place,  and  without  achieving  any 
private  good,  does  a  positive  wrong  to  the  commu' 
nity  at  large. 


Female  Professions.  53 

One  is  often  tempted  to  believe,  in  the  great  in- 
flux of  small  talents  which,  now  deluges  us,  that  if 
half  the  books  written,  and  pictures  painted,  were 
made  into  one  great  bonfire,  it  would  be  their 
shortest,  easiest,  and  safest  way  of  illuminating  the 
world. 

Therefore,  let  men  do  as  they  will — and  truly  they 
are  often  ten  times  vainer  and  more  ambitious  than 
we  1 — but  I  would  advise  every  woman  to  examine 
herself  and  judge  herself,  morally  and  intellectually, 
by  the  sharpest  tests  of  criticism,  before  she  attempts 
art  or  literature,  either  for  abstract  fame  or  as  a  means 
of  livelihood.  Let  her  take  to  heart,  humbly,  the 
telling  truth,  that 

"  Fools  rush  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread," 

and  be  satisfied  that  the  smallest  perfect  achievement 
is  nobler  than  the  grandest  failure.  But  having,  after 
mature  deliberation,  chosen  her  calling,  and  conscien- 
tiously believing  it  is  her  calling — that  in  which  she 

shaL  do  most  good,  and  best  carry  out  the  aim  of  her 

3* 


54  Female  Professions. 

existence — let  her  fulfil  to  the  last  iota  its  solemn 
requirements. 

These  entail  more,  much  more,  than  flighty  young 
genius  or  easily-satisfied  mediocrity  ever  dreams  of; 
labour  incessant,  courage  inexhaustible,  sustained 
under  difficulties,  misfortunes,  and  rebuffs  of  every 
conceivable  kind — added  thereto,  not  unfrequently, 
the  temperament  to  which  these  things  come  hardest. 
Le  genie  c'est  la  patience;  and  though  there  is  a  truth 
beyond  it — since  all  the  patience  in  the  world  will 
not  serve  as  a  substitute  for  genius, — still,  never  was 
a  truer  saying  than  this  of  old  Buffon's.  Especially 
as  applied  to  women,  when  engaged  in  a  profession 
which  demands  from  them,  no  less  than  from  men, 
the  fervent  application,  and  sometimes  the  total  devo- 
tion of  a  lifetime. 

For,  high  as  the  calling  is,  it  is  not  always,  in  the 
human  sense,  a  happy  one ;  it  often  results  in,  if  it 
does  not  spring  from,  great  sacrifices ;  and  is  full  of  a 
thousand  misconstructions,  annoyances,  and  tempta- 
tions. Nay,  since  ambition  is  a  quality  far  oftener 
deficient  in  us  than  in  the  other  sex,  its  very  sue- 


Female  Professions.  55 

cesses  are  less  sweet  to  women  than  to  men.  Many  a 
"  celebrated  authoress"  or  "  exquisite  paintress"  must 
have  felt  the  heart-truth  in  Aurora  Leigh  : 

"  I  might  have  been  a  common  woman,  now, 
And  happier,  less  known  and  less  left  alone, 
Perhaps  a  better  woman  after  all — 
With  chubby  children  hanging  round  my  neck, 
To  keep  me  low  and  wise.    Ah  me !  the  vines 
That  bear  such  fruit  are  proud  to  stoop  with  it — 
The  palm  stands  upright  in  a  realm  of  sand." 

And,  setting  aside  both  these  opposite  poles  of  the  ' 
female  character  and  lot,  it  remains  yet  doubtful  whe- 
ther the  maiden-aunt  who  goes  from  house  to  house, 
perpetually  busy  and  useful — the  maiden  house- 
mother, who  keeps  together  an  orphan  family,  having 
all  the  cares,  and  only  half  the  joys  of  maternity  or 
mistress-ship — even  the  active,  bustling  "  old  maid," 
determined  on  setting  everybody  to  rights,  and  having 
a  finger  in  every  pie  that  needs  her,  and  a  few  that 
don't — I  question  whether  each  of  these  women  has 
not  a  more  natural,  and  therefore,  probably,  a  happier 


56  Female  Professions. 

existence,  than  any    "  woman  of  genius"  that  evei 
enlightened  the  world. 

But  happiness  is  not  the  first  nor  the  only  thing  on 
earth.  Whosoever  has  entered  upon  this  vocation  in 
the  right  spirit,  let  her  keep  to  it,  neither  afraid  nor 
ashamed.  The  days  of  blue-stockings  are  over :  it  is 
a  notable  fact,  that  the  best  housekeepers,  the  neatest 
needlewomen,  the  most  discreet  managers  of  their 
own  and  others'  affairs,  are  ladies  whose  names  the 
world  cons  over  in  library  lists  and  exhibition  cata 
logues.  I  could  give  them  now — except  that  the 
world  has  no  possible  business  with  them,  except  to 
read  their  books  and  look  at  their  pictures.  It  must 
imply  something  deficient  in  the  women  themselves, 
if  the  rude  curiosity  of  this  said  well-meaning  but 
often  impertinent  public  is  ever  allowed  to  break  in 
upon  that  dearest  right  of  every  woman — the  invio- 
lable sanctity  of  her  home. 

Without — in  these  books  and  by  these  pictures — 
let  it  always  be  a  fair  fight,  and  no  quarter.  To  exact 
consideration  merely  on  account  of  her  sex,  is  in  any 
woman  the  poorest  cowardice.  She  has  entered  the 


Female  Professions.  57 

neutral  realm  of  pure  intellect — has  donned  brain- 
armour  and  must  carry  on  with  lawful,  consecrated 
weapons  a  combat,  of  which  the  least  reward  in  her 
e_y  as,  in  which  .she  never  can  freeze  up  or  burn  out 
either  the  woman-tears  or  woman-smiles,  will  be  that 
public  acknowledgment  called  Fame. 

This  fame,  as  gained  in  art  or  literature,  is  certainly 
of  a  purer  and  safer  kind  than  that  which  falls  to 
the  lot  of  the  female  artiste. 

Most  people  will  grant  that  no  great  gift  is  given  to 
be  hid  under  a  bushel ;  that  a  Sarah  Siddons,  a  Ea- 
chel,  or  a  Jenny  Lind,  being  created,  was  certainly  not 
created  for  nothing.  There  seems  no  reason  why  a 
great  actress  or  vocalist  should  not  exercise  her  talents 
to  the  utmost  for  the  world's  benefit,  and  her  own ; 
nor  that  any  genius,  boiling  and  bursting  up  to  find 
expression,  should  be  pent  down,  cruelly  and  danger- 
ously, because  it  refuses  to  run  in  the  ordinary  chan- 
nel of  feminine  development.  But  the  last  profession 
of  the  four  which  I  have  enumerated  as  the  only  paths 
at  present  open  to  women,  is  the  one  which  is  the 


j8  Female  Professions. 

most  full  of  perils  and  difficulties,  on  account  of  the 
personality  involved  in  its  exercise. 

"We  may  paint  scores  of  pictures,  write  shelvesful 
of  books — the  errant  children  of  our  brain  may  be  fami- 
liar half  over  the  known  world,  and  yet  we  ourselves 
sit  as  quiet  by  our  chimney-corner,  live  a  life  as  simple 
and  peaceful  as  any  happy  "  common  woman"  of  them 
all.  But  with  the  artiste  it  is  very  different ;  she  needs 
to  be  constantly  before  the  public,  not  only  mentally, 
but  physically :  the  general  eye  becomes  familiar,  not 
merely  with  her  genius,  but  her  corporeality;  and 
every  comment  of  admiration  or  blame  awarded  to 
her,  is  necessarily  an  immediate  personal  criticism. 
This  of  itself  is  a  position  contrary  to  the  instinctive 
something — call  it  reticence,  modesty,  shyness,  what 
you  will — which  is  inherent  in  every  one  of  Eve's 
daughters.  Any  young  girl,  standing  before  a  large 
party  in  her  first  tableau  vivant — any  singing-pupil  at 
a  public  examination — any  boy-lover  or  some  ador- 
able actress,  at  the  moment  when  he  first  thinks  of  that 
goddess  as  his  wife,  will  understand  what  I  mean. 


Female  Professions.  59 

But  that  is  by  no  means  the  chief  objection ;  for  the 
feeling  of  personal  shyness  dies  out,  and  in  the  true 
artiste  becomes  altogether  merged  in  the  love  and 
inspiration  of  her  art — the  inexplicable  fascination  of 
which  turns  the  many-eyed  gazing  mass  into  a  mere 
"public,"  of  whose  individuality  the  performer  is  no 
more  conscious  than  was  the  Pythoness  of  her  curled 
and  scented  Greek  audience,  when  she  felt  on  her 
tripod  the  afflatus  of  the  unconquerable,  inevitable 
god.  The  saddest  phase  of  artiste-life — which  is, 
doubtless,  the  natural  result  of  this  constant  appear- 
ance before  the  public  eye,  this  incessant  struggle  for 
the  public's  personal  verdict — is  its  intense  involun- 
tary egotism. 

No  one  can  have  seen  anything  of  theatrical  or 
musical  circles  without  noticing  this — the  incessant 
recurrence  to  "my  part,"  "my  song,"  "what  the  pub- 
lic think  of  me"  In  the  hand-to-hand  struggle  for 
the  capricious  public's  favour,  this  sad  selfishness  is 
apparently  inevitable.  "Each  for  himself"  seems 
implanted  in  masculine  nature,  for  its  own  preserva- 
tion ;  but  when  it  comes  to  "  each  for  herself" — whec 


60  Female  Professions. 

you  see  the  fairest  Shakespeare  heroines  tu.  MI  red  01 
pale  at  the  mention  of  a  rival  impersonator — when 
Miss  This  cannot  be  asked  to  a  party  for  fear  of  meet- 
ing Madame  That,  or  if  they  do  meet,  through  all 
their  smiling  civility  you  perceive  their  backs  are  up, 
like  two  strange  cats  meeting  at  a  parlour-door — I  say, 
this  is  the  most  lamentable  of  all  results,  not  abso- 
lutely vicious,  which  the  world,  and  the  necessity  of 
working  in  it,  effect  on  women. 

And  for  this  reason  the  profession  of  public  enter- 
tainment, in  all  its  gradation,  from  the  inspired 
tragedienne  to  the  poor  'chorus-singer,  is,  above  any 
profession  I  know,  to  be  marked  with  a  spiritual 
Humane  Society's  pole,  "  Dangerous."  Not  after  the 
vulgar  notion :  we  have  among  us  too  many  chaste, 
matronly  actresses,  and  charming  maiden- vocalists,  to 
enter  now  into  the  old  question  about  the  "  respecta- 
bility" of  the  stage;  but  on  account  of  the  great 
danger  to  temperament,  character,  and  mode  of 
thought,  to  which  such  a  life  peculiarly  exposes  its 
followers. 

But  if  a  woman  has  chosen  it — I  repeat  in  this  as 


Female  Professions.  61 

in  any  other — let  her  not  forego  it ;  for  in  every  oo 
cupation  the  worthiness,  like  the  "readiness,"  "is 
all."  Never  let  her  be  moulded  by  her  calling,  but 
mould  her  calling  to  herself;  being,  as  every  woman 
ought  to  be,  the  woman  first,  the  artiste  afterwards. 
And,  doubtless,  so  are  many;  doubtless  one  could 
find,  not  only  among  the  higher  ranks  of  this  profes- 
sion, where  genius  itself  acts  as  a  purifying  and  refin- 
ing fire,  but  in  its  lower  degrees,  many  who,  under 
the  glare  of  the  footlights  and  the  din  of  popular 
applause,  have  kept  their  freshness  and  singleness  of 
character  unfaded  to  the  end.  Aye,  even  among  poor 
ballet-dancers,  capering  with  set  rouged  smiles  and 
leaden  hearts — coarse  screaming  concert-singers,  doing 
sham  pathos  at  a  guinea  a-night — flaunting  actresses- 
of-all-work,  firmly  believing  themselves  the  best  Juliet 
or  Lady  Macbeth  extant,  and  yet  condescending  to 
take  ever  so  small  a  part — even  the  big-headed  "prin- 
cess" of  an  Easter  extravaganza,  for  the  sake  of  the 
old  parents,  or  the  fiddler-husband  and  the  sickly 
babies  at  home.  No  doubt,  many  of  them  live — let 
us  rather  say,  endure — a  life  as  pure,  as  patient,  aa 


62  Female  Professions. 

self-denying,  as  that  of  hundreds  of  timid,  daintily 
protected  girls,  and  would-be  correct  matrons,  who 
shrink  in  safe  privacy  from  the  very  thought  of  these 
Bat  Heaven  counts  and  cares  for  all. 

Therefore,  in  this  perilous  road,  double  honour  be 
unto  those  who  walk  upright,  double  pity  unto  those 
who  fall  1 

Conning  over  again  this  desultory  chapter,  it  seems 
to  me  it  all  comes  to  neither  more  nor  less  than  this : 
that  since  a  woman,  by  choosing  a  definite  profession, 
must  necessarily  quit  the  kindly  shelter  and  safe  nega- 
tiveness  of  a  private  life,  and  assume  a  substantive 
position,  it  is  her  duty  not  hastily  to  decide,  and  be- 
fore deciding,  in  every  way  to  count  the  cost.  But 
having  chosen,  let  her  fulfil  her  lot.  Let  there  be  no 
hesitations,  no  regrets,  no  compromises — they  are  at 
once  cowardly  and  vain.  She  may  have  missed  or 
foregone  much ; — I  repeat,  our  natural  and  happiest 
life  is  when  we  lose  ourselves  in  the  exquisite  absorp- 
tion of  home,  the  delicious  retirement  of  dependent 
love;  but  what  she  has,  she  has,  and  nothing  can 
ever  take  it  from  her.  Nor  is  it,  after  all,  a  small 


Female  Professions.  63 

tiling  for  any  woman — be  she  governess,  paintei;/ 
author,  or  artiste — to  feel  that,  higher  or  lower,  accord- 
ing to  her  degree,  she  ranks  among  that  crowned 
band  who,  whether  or  not  they  are  the  happy  ones, 
are  elected  to  the  heaven-given  honour  of  being  the 
Workers  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

FEMALE  HANDICRAFTS. 

WHILE  planning  this  chapter  I  chanced  to  read,  in  a 
late  number  of  the  North  British  Quarterly,  a  paper 
headed  "  Employment  of  Women,"  which  expressed 
many  of  my  ideas  in  forms  so  much  clearer  and  bet- 
ter than  any  into  which  I  can  cast  them,  that  I  long 
hesitated  whether  it  were  worth  while  attempting  to 
set  them  down  here  at  all ;  but  afterwards,  seeing  that 
these  Thoughts  aim  less  at  originality  than  usefulness 
— nay,  that  since  they  are  but  the  repetition  in  one 
woman's  written  words  of  what  must  already  have 
occurred  to  the  minds  of  hundreds  of  other  women, — • 
if  they  were  startlingly  original,  they  would  probably 
cease  to  be  useful, — I  determined  to  say  my  say.  It 
matters  little  when,  or  how,  or  by  how  many,  truth  is 
spoken,  if  only  it  be  truth. 

Taking  up  the  question  of  female  handicrafts,  in 


Female  Handicrafts.  65 

contradistinction  to  female  professions,  the  first  thing 
that  strikes  one  is  the  largeness  of  the  subject,  and 
how  very  little  one  practically  knows  about  it.  Of 
necessity,  it  has  not  much  to  say  for  itself;  it  lives  by 
its  fingers  rather  than  its  brains ;  it  cannot  put  its  life 
into  print.  Sometimes  a  poet  does  this  for  it,  and 
thrills  millions  with  a  Song  of  ike  Shirt ;  or  a  novelist 
presents  us  with  some  imaginary  portrait — some  Let- 
tice  Arnold,  Susan  Hopley,  or  Ruth,  idealised  more  or 
less,  it  may  be,  yet  sufficiently  true  to  nature  to  give 
us  a  passing  interest  in  our  shop-girls,  sempstresses, 
and  maid-servants,  abstractedly  as  a  class.  But  of  the 
individuals,  of  their  modes  of  existence,  feeling,  and 
thought — of  their  sorrows  and  pleasures,  accomplish- 
ments and  defects — we  "  ladies"  of  the  middle  and 
upper  ranks,  especially  those  who  reside  in  great 
towns,  know  essentially  nothing. 

The  whole  working  class  is  a  silent  class ;  and  this 
division  of  it  being  a  degree  above  the  cottage  visita- 
tions of  Ladies  Bountiful,  or  the  legislation  of  Ten- 
Hours'-Bill  Committees  in  an  enlightened  British 
Parliament,  is  the  most  silent  of  all.  Yet  it  includes 


66  Female  Handicrafts. 

so  many  grades — from  the  West-end  millinc.r,  who 
dresses  in  silk  every  day,  and  is  almost  (often  quite) 
a  "lady,"  down  to  the  wretched  lodging-house 
1  slavey,"  who  seems  to  be  less  a  woman  than  a  mere 
working  animal — that,  viewing  it,  one  shrinks  back 
in  awe  of  its  vastness.  What  an  enormous  influence 
it  must  unconsciously  exercise  on  society,  this  dumb 
multitude,  which,  behind  counters,  in  work-rooms, 
garrets,  and  bazaars,  or  in  service  at  fashionable, 
respectable,  or  barely  decent  houses,  goes  toiling, 
toiling  on,  from  morning  till  night — often  from  night 
till  morning — at  anything  and  everything,  just  for 
daily  bread  and  honesty ! 

Now,  Society  recognises  this  fact — gets  up  early- 
closing  movements,  makes  eloquent  speeches  in  lawn 
sleeves  or  peers'  broadcloth  at  Hanover  Square 
Rooms,  or  writes  a  letter  to  the  Times,  enlarging  on 
the  virtue  of  ordering  court-dresses  in  time,  so  that 
one  portion  of  Queen  Yictoria's  female  subjects  may 
not  be  hurried  into  disease  or  death,  or  worse,  in 
order  that  another  portion  may  shine  out  brilliant 
and  beautiful  at  Her  Majesty's  balls  and  drawing- 


Female  Handicrafts.  67 

rooms.  All  this  is  good ;  but  it  is  only  a  drop  in  the 
bucket — a  little  oil  cast  on  the  top  of  the  stream. 
The  great  tide  of  struggle  and  suffering  flows  on  just 
the  same ;  the  surface  may  be  slightly  troubled,  but 
the  undercurrent  seems  to  be  in  a  state  which  it  ia 
impossible  to  change. 

Did  I  say  "impossible?"  No;  I  do  not  believe 
there  is  anything  under  heaven  to  which  we  have  a 
right  to  apply  that  word. 

Apparently,  one  of  the  chief  elements  of  wrong  in 
the  class  which  I  have  distinguished  as  handicrafts- 
women,  is  the  great  and  invidious  distinction  drawn 
between  it  and  that  of  professional  women.  Many 
may  repudiate  this  in  theory ;  yet,  practically,  I  ask 
lady-mothers  whether  they  would  not  rather  take  for 
daughter-in-law  the  poorest  governess,  the  most  pen- 
niless dependant,  than  a  "  person  in  business" — milli- 
ner, dress-maker,  shop- woman,  &c.  ?  As  for  a  domes- 
tic servant — a  cook,  or  even  a  lady's-maid — I  am 
afraid  a  young  man's  choice  of  such  an  one  for  his 
wife,  would  ruin  him  for  ever  in  the  eyes  of  Society. 

Society — begging  her  pardon! — is   often  a  great 


68  Female  Handicrafts. 

fooL  Why  should  it  be  less  creditable  to  make  good 
dresses  than  bad  books  ?  In  what  is  it  better  to  be  at 
night  a  singing  servant  to  an  applauding  or  capri- 
ciously contemptuous  public,  than  to  wait  on  the  said 
public  in  the  day-time  from  behind  the  counter  of 
shop  or  bazaar  ?  I  confess,  I  cannot  see  the  mighty 
difference ;  when  the  question,  as  must  be  distinctly 
understood,  concerns  not  personal  merit  or  endow- 
ments, but  external  calling. 

And  here  comes  in  the  old  warfare,  which  began 
worthily  enough,  in  the  respect  due  to  mind  over 
matter,  head-work  over  hand-work,  but  has  deterio 
rated  by  custom  into  a  ridiculous  and  contemptible 
tyranny — the  battle  between  professions  and  trades. 
I  shall  not  enter  into  it  here.  Happily,  men  are  novr 
slowly  waking  up — women  more  slowly  still — to  a 
perception  of  the  truth,  that  honour  is  an  intrinsic  and 
not  extrinsic  possession ;  that  one  means  of  livelihood 
is  not  of  itself  one  whit  more  "respectable"  than 
another ;  that  credit  or  discredit  can  attach  in  no  de- 
gree to  the  work  done,  but  to  the  manner  of  doing  it^ 
and  to  the  individual  who  does  it. 


Female  Handicrafts.  69 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  any  class  that,  as  a  class, 
lacks  honour,  has  usually,  some  time  or  other,  fallen 
short  in  desert  of  it.  Thus,  among  handicraftswomen, 
who  bear  to  professional  women  the  same  relation  as 
tradesmen  to  gentlemen,  one  often  finds  great  sell- 
assertion  and  equivalent  want  of  self-respect,  painful 
servility  or  pitiable  impertinence — in  short,  many  of 
those  faults  which  arise  in  a  transition  state  of  partial 
education,  and  accidental  semi-refinement.  Also, 
since  a  certain  amount  of  both  refinement  and  educa- 
tion is  necessary  to  create  a  standard  of  moral  consci- 
entiousness, this  order  of  women  is  much  more  defi- 
cient than  the  one  above  it  in  that  stern,  steady  up- 
rightness which  constitutes  what  we  call  elevation  of 
character.  Through  the  want  of  pride  in  their  calling, 
and  laxity  or  slovenliness  of  principle  in  pursuing  it, 
they  are  at  war  with  the  class  above  them;  which 
justly  complains  of  those  unconquerable  faults  and 
deficiencies  that  make  patience  the  only  virtue  it  can 
practise  towards  its  inferiors. 

How  amend  this  lamentable  state  of  things?  How 
lessen  the  infinite  wrongs,  errors,  and  sufferings  of 


70  Female  Handicrafts. 

tliis  mass  of  womanhood,  out  of  which  arc  glutted 
our  churchyards,  hospitals,  prisons,  penitentiaries; 
from  which,  more  than  from  any  other  section  of 
society,  is  taken  that  pest  and  anguish  of  our  streets, 
the 

"Eighty  thousand  women  in  one  smile, 
Who  only  smile  at  night  beneath  the  gas." 

Many  writers  of  both  sexes  are  now  striving  to 
answer  this  question;  and  many  others,  working 
more  by  their  lives  than  their  pens,  are  practically 
trying  to  solve  the  problem.  All  honour  and  suc- 
cess attend  both  workers  and  writers!  Each  in 
their  vocation  will  spur  on  society  to  bestir  itself, 
and,  by  the  combination  of  popular  feeling,  to 
achieve  in  some  large  form  a  solid  social  good. 

But  in  these  Thoughts  I  would  fain  address  indi- 
viduals. I  want  to  speak,  not  to  society  at  large, 
for  as  we  well  know,  "  everybody's  business"  is  often 
"  nobody's  business,"  but  to  each  woman  separately, 
appealing  to  her  in  her  personal  character  as  em- 
ployer or  employed. 


Female  Handicrafts.  71 

And,  first,  as  employer. 

I  am  afraid  it  is  from  some  natural  deficiency  in 
tlie  constitution  of  our  sex  that  it  is  so  difficult  to 
tench  us  justice.  It  certainly  was  a  mistake  to  make 
that  admirable  virtue  a  female;  and  even  then  the 
allegorist  seems  to  have  found  it  necessary  to  ban- 
dage her  eyes.  No;  kindliness,  unselfishness,  cha- 
rity, come  to  us  by  nature ;  but  I  wish  I  could  see 
more  of  my  sisters  learning  and  practising  what  is 
far  more  difficult  and  far  less  attractive — common 
justice,  especially  towards  one  another. 

In  dealing  with  men,  there  is  little  fear  but  that 
they  will  take  care  of  themselves.  That  "first  law 
of  nature,"  self-preservation,  is — doubtless,  for  wise 
purposes — imprinted  pretty  strongly  on  the  mind  of 
the  male  sex.  It  is  in  transactions  between  women 
and  women  that  the  difficulty  lies.  Therein — I  put 
the  question  to  the  aggregate  conscience  of  us  all 
— is  it  not,  openly  or  secretly,  our  chief  aim  to  get 
the  largest  possible  amount  of  labour  for  the  smallest 
possible  price? 

We  do  not  mean  any  harm ;   we  are  only  acting 


72  Female  Handicrafts. 

for  the  best — for  our  own  benefit,  and  that  of  the  se 
nearest  to  us ;  and  yet  we  are  committing  an  act  of 
injustice,  the  result  of  which  fills  slopsellers'  doors 
with  starving  sempstresses,  and  causes  unlimited 
competition  among  incompetent  milliners  and  dress- 
makers, while  skilled  labour  in  all  these  branches 
is  lamentably  scarce  and  extravagantly  dear.  Of 
course !  so  long  as  one  continually  hears  ladies  say : 
"Oh,  I  got  such  and  such  a  thing  almost  for  half- 
price — such  a  bargain  I"  or :  "  Do  you  know  I  have 
found  out  such  a  cheap  dressmaker !"  May  I  suggest 
to  these  the  common-sense  law  of  political  economy, 
that  neither  labour  nor  material  can  possibly  be  got 
"cheaply" — that  is,  below  its  average  acknowledged 
cost,  without  somebody's  being  cheated?  Conse- 
quently, these  devotees  to  cheapness,  when  not  vic- 
tims— which  they  frequently  are  in  the  long  run — 
are  very  little  better  than  genteel  swindlers. 

There  is  another  lesser  consideration,  and  yet  not 
small  either.  Labour,  unfairly  remunerated,  of  ne- 
cessity deteriorates  in  quality,  and  thereby  lowers  the 
standard  of  appreciation.  Every  time  I  pay  a  low 


Female  Handicrafts.  73 

price  for  an  ill-fitting  gown  or  an  ugly  tawdry  bonnet 
— cheapness  is  usually  tawdry — I  am  wronging  not 
merely  myself,  but  my  employee,  by  encouraging 
careless  work  and  bad  taste,  |ind  by  thus  going  in  di- 
rect opposition  to  a  rule  from  whence  springs  so  much 
that  is  eclectic  and  beautiful  in  the  female  character, 
*,hat  "  whatever  is  worth  doing  at  all  is  worth  doing 
well."  If,  on  the  contrary,  I  knowingly  pay  below 
its  value  for  really  good  work,  I  am,  as  aforesaid, 
neither  more  nor  less  than  a  dishonest  appropriator 
of  other  people's  property — a  swindler — a  ihwf. 

Humiliating  as  the  confession  may  be,  it  must  be 
owned  that,  on  the  whole,  men  are  less  prone  to  this 
petty  vice  than  we  are.  You  rarely  find  a  gentleman 
beating  down  his  tailor,  cheapening  his  hosier,  or 
haggling  with  his  groom  over  a  few  shillings  of  wages. 
Either  his  wider  experience  has  enlarged  his  mind, 
or  he  has  less  time  for  bargaining,  or  he  will  not  take 
•  the  trouble.  It  is  among  us,  alas !  that  you  see  most 
instances  of  "stinginess" — not  the  noble  economy 
which  can  and  does  lessen  its  personal  wants  to  the 
narrowest  rational  limit,  but  the  mean  parsimony 


74  Female  Handicrafts. 

which  tries  to  satisfy  them  below  cost-price,  and  con- 
sequently always  at  somebody  else's  expense  rather 
than  its  own.  Against  this  crying  sin — none  the  less 
a  sin  because  often  masked  as  a  virtue,  and  even  cor- 
rupted from  an  original  virtue — it  becomes  our 
bounden  duty,  as  women,  to  protest  with,  all  oar 
power.  More  especially,  because  it  is  a  temptation 
peculiar  to  ourselves ;  engendered  by  many  a  cruel 
domestic  narrowness,  many  a  grinding  struggle  to 
"  make  ends  meet,"  of  which  the  sharpness  always 
falls  to  the  woman's  lot,  to  a  degree  that  men,  in  their 
grand  picturesque  pride  and  reckless  indifference  to 
expense,  can  rarely  either  feel  or  appreciate. 

I  do  not  here  advance  the  argument,  usually  en 
forced  by  experience,  that  cheapness  always  come? 
dearest  in  the  end,  and  that  only  a  wealthy  person 
can  afford  to  make  "bargains;"  because  I  wish  to 
open  the  question — and  leave  it — on  the  far  higher 
ground  of  moral  justice.  The  celebrated  sentiment 
of  Benjamin  Franklin,  "  Honesty  is  the  best  policy," 
appears  rather  a  mean  and  unchristian  mode  of  incul- 
cating the  said  virtue. 


Female  Handicrafts.  75 

Another  injustice,  less  patent,  but  equally  harmful, 
is  constantly  committed  by  ladies — na*mely,  the  con- 
ducting of  business  relations  in  an  unbusinesslike 
manner.  Carelessness,  irregularity,  or  delay  in  giv- 
ing orders ;  needless  absorption  of  time,  which  is 
money ;  and,  above  all,  want  of  explicitness  and  deci- 
sion, are  faults  which  no  one  dare  complain  of  in  a 
customer,  but  yet  which  result  in  the  most  cruel 
wrong.  Perhaps  the  first  quality  in  an  employer  is 
to  know  her  own  mind ;  the  second,  to  be  able  to  state 
it  clearly,  so  as  to  avoid  the  possibility  of  mistake ; 
and  no  error  caused  by  a  blunder  or  irresolution  on 
her  part  should  ever  be  visited  upon  the  person 
employed. 

There  is  one  injustice  which  I  hardly  need  refer  to, 
so  nearly  does  it  approach  to  actual  dishonesty.  Any 
lady  who  wilfully  postpones  payment  beyond  a  rea- 
sonable time,  or  in  any  careless  way  prefers  her 
convenience  to  her  duty,  her  pleasure  to  her  sense  of 
right — who  for  one  single  day  keeps  one  single  person 
waiting  for  a  debt  which  at  all  lies  within  her  power 
to  discharge — is  a  creature  so  far  below  the  level  of 


76  Female  Handicrafts. 

true  womanhood  that  I  would  rather  not  speak  of 
her. 

And  now,  as  to  the  class  of  the  employed.  It 
resolves  itself  into  so  many  branches  that  I  shall 
attempt  only  to  generalise,  nor  refer  to  distinctive 
occupations,  which  are  dividing,  subdividing,  and 
extending  from  year  to  year.  The  world  is  slowly 
discovering  that  women  are  capable  of  far  more  crafts 
than  was  supposed,  if  only  they  are  properly  educated 
for  them:  that,  here  and  abroad,  they  are  good 
accountants,  shopkeepers,  drapers'  assistants,  telegraph 
clerks,  watch-makers :  and  doubtless  would  be  better, 
if  the  ordinary  training  which  almost  every  young 
man  has  a  chance  of  getting,  and  which  in  any  case 
he  is  supposed  to  have,  were  thought  equally  indis- 
pensable to  young  women.  And  well,  indeed,  if  it 
were  so:  for  there  is  no  possible  condition  of  life 
where  business  habits  are  not  of  the  greatest  value  to 
any  woman. 

I  have  heard  the  outcry  raised,  that  this  educating 
of  one  sex  to  do  the  work  and  press  into  the  place  of 
the  other  lessens  the  value  of  labour,  and  so  depreci 


Female  Handicrafts.  77 

ates  the  chances  of  matrimony,  to  the  manifest  injury 
of  both.  Charming  theory !  which  pays  us  the  double- 
edged  compliment  of  being  so  evidently  afraid  of  our 
competitive  powers,  and  so  complacently  satisfied,  that 
the  sole  purpose  and  use  of  our  existence  is  to  be 
married ! 

But  Nature,  wiser  than  such  theorists,  contradicts 
them  without  any  argument  of  ours.  She  has  suffi- 
ciently limited  our  physique  to  prevent  our  being  very- 
fatal  rivals  in  manual  labour;  she  has  given  us  in- 
stincts that  will  rarely  make  us  prefer  masculine  oc- 
cupations to  sweeping  the  hearth  and  rocking  the 
cradle — when  such  duties  are  possible.  And  if  it 
were  not  so,  would  the  case  be  any  better?  There  is 
a  certain  amount  of  work  to  be  done,  and  somebody 
must  do  it:  a  certain  community  to  be  fed,  and  it 
must  be  fed  somehow.  "Would  it  benefit  the  male 
portion  thereof  to  have  all  the  burden  on  their  own 
shoulders?  "Would  it  raise  the  value  of  their  labour 
to  depreciate  ours?  or  advantage  them  to  keep  us, 
forcibly,  in  idleness,  ignorance,  and  incapacity?  I 
trow  not.  Rather  let  each  sex  have  a  fair  chance :  let 


7  8  Female  Handicrafts. 

women,  and  single  women  above  all,  be  taught  to  dc 
all  they  can,  and  do  it  as  well  as  they  can.  Little  feai 
that  there  will  not  remain  a  sufficiently  wide  field 
open  to  competent  men,  and  only  men,  in  every 
handicraft :  little  fear  that  the  natural  metier  of  most 
women  will  not  always  be  the  cherished  labours  of 
the  fireside. 

One  trade  in  all  its  branches,  domestic  or  otherwise, 
is  likely  to  remain  principally  our  own — the  use  of 
the  needle. 

Who  amongst  us  has  not  a  great  reverence  for  that 
little  dainty  tool;  such  a  wonderful  brightener  and 
consoler ;  our  weapon  of  defence  against  slothfulness, 
weariness,  and  sad  thoughts;  our  thrifty  helper  in 
poverty,  our  pleasant  friend  at  all  times  ?  From  the 
first  "cobbled-up"  doll's  frock— the  first  neat  stitch- 
ing for  mother,  or  hemming  of  father's  pocket-hand- 
kerchief— the  first  bit  of  sewing  shyly  done  for  some 
one  who  is  to  own  the  hand  and  all  its  duties — most 
of  all,  the  first  strange,  delicious  fairy  work,  sewed  at 
diligently,  in  solemn  faith  and  tender  love,  for  the 
tiny  creature  as  yet  unknown  and  unseen — truly,  no 


Female  Handicrafts.  79 

one  but  ourselves  can  tell  what  the  needle  is  to  us 
women. 

With  all  due  respect  for  brains,  I  think  women 
cannot  be  too  early  taught  to  respect  likewise  their 
©wn  ten  fingers. 

It  is  a  grand  thing  to  be  a  good  needlewoman,  even 
in  what  is  called  in  England  "plain  sewing,"  and  in 
Scotland,  a  "white  seam;"  and  any  one  who  ever 
tried  to  make  a  dress  knows  well  enough  that  skill, 
patience,  and  ingenuity,  nay,  a  certain  kind  of  genius, 
is  necessary  to  achieve  any  good  result.  Of  all  artifi- 
cers, the  poor  dressmaker  is  the  last  who  ought  to  be 
grudged  good  payment.  Instead  of  depreciating,  we 
should  rather  try  to  inspire  her  with  a  sincere  follow- 
ing of  her  art  as  an  art — even  a  pleasant  pride  in  it. 

"  The  labour  we  delight  in  physics  pain  ;" 

and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  any  branch  of  labour 
can  be  worthily  pursued  unless  the  labourer  take  an 
interest  in  it  beyond  the  mere  hire.  I  know  a  dress- 
maker who  evidently  feels  personally  aggrieved  when 
you  decline  to  yield  to  her  taste  in  costume;  who 


8o  Female  Handicrafts. 

never  spares  pains  or  patience  to  adorn  her  customers 
to  the  very  best  of  her  skill ;  and  who,  by  her  serious 
and  simple  belief  in  her  own  business,  would  half  per- 
suade you  that  the  destinies  of  the  whole  civilised 
world  hung  on  the  noble  but  neglected  art  of  mantua- 
making.  One  cannot  but  respect  that  woman ! 

Much  has  been  said  concerning  justice  from  the  em- 
ployer to  the  employed,  and  as  much  might  be  said  in 
behalf  of  the  opposite  side.  For  a  person  to  under- 
take more  work  than  she  can  finish,  to  break  her  pro- 
mises, tell  white  lies,  be  wasteful,  unpunctual,  is  to-be 
scarcely  less  dishonest  to  her  employer  than  if  she 
directly  robbed  her.  The  want  of  conscientiousness, 
which  is  only  too  general  among  the  lower  order  of 
shopkeepers  and  people  in  business,  does  more  to 
brand  upon  trade  the  old  stigma  which  the  present 
generation  is  wisely  endeavouring  to  efface,  and  to 
blacken  and  broaden  the  line,  now  fast  vanishing,  be- 
tween tradesfolk  and  gentlefolk — more,  tenfold,  than 
all  the  narrow-minded  pride  of  the  most  prejudiced 
aristocracy. 

I  should  like  to  see  working  women — handicrafts- 


Female  Handicrafts.  81 

women — take  up  their  pride,  and  wield  it  with  sense 
and  courage ;  I  should  like  to  see  them  educating 
themselves,  for  education  is  the  grand  motive  power 
in  the  advancement  of  all  classes.  I  do  not  allude  to 
mere  book-learning,  but  that  combination  of  mental, 
moral,  and  manual  attainments,  the  mere  desire  for 
and  appreciation  of  which  give  a  higher  tone  to  the 
whole  being.  And  there  are  few  conditions  of  life, 
whether  it  be  passed  at  the  counter  or  over  the  needle, 
in  the  work-room  or  at  home,  where  an  intelligent 
young  woman  has  not  some  opportunity  of  gaining 
information ;  little  enough  it  may  be — from  a  book 
snatched  up  at  rare  intervals,  a  print-shop  window 
glanced  at,  as  she  passes  along  the  street — a  silent  ob- 
servation and  imitation  of  whatever  seems  most  plea- 
sant and  refined  in  those  of  her  superiors  with  whom 
she  may  be  thrown  into  contact.  However  small  her 
progress  may  be,  yet  if  she  have  a  genuine  wish  for 
mental  improvement,  the  true  thirst  after  what  is  good 
and  beautiful — the  good  being  always  the  beautiful — 
for  its  own  sake,  there  is  little  fear  but  that  she  will 
gradually  attain  her  end. 


82  Female  Handicrafts. 

There  is  one  class  which,  from  its  daily  and  hourly 
familiarity  with  that  above  it,  has  perhaps  more  op- 
portunities than  any  for  this  gradual  self-cultivation — 
I  mean  the  class  of  domestic  servants ;  but  these, 
though  belonging  to  the  ranks  of  women  who  live  by 
hand-labour,  form  a  body  in  so  many  points  distinct, 
that  they  must  form  the  subject  of  a  separate  chapter. 

Cannot  some  one  suggest  a  slight  amendment  on 
the  usual  cry  of  elevating  the  working  classes — 
whether  it  be  not  possible  to  arouse  in  them  the 
desire  to  elevate  themselves  ?  Every  growth  of  nature 
begins  less  in  the  external  force  applied  than  the  vital 
principle  asserting  itself  within.  It  is  the  undercur- 
rent that  helps  to  break  up  the  ice ;  the  sap,  as  well 
as  the  sunshine,  that  brings  out  the  green  leaves 
of  spring.  I  doubt  if  any  class  can  be  success- 
fully elevated  unless  it  has  indicated  the  power  to 
raise  itself ;  and  the  first  thing  to  make  it  worthy  of 
respect  is,  to  teach  it  to  respect  itself. 

':  In  all  labour  there  is  profit " — ay,  and  honour  too, 
if  the  toilers  could  but  recognise  it ;  if  the  large  talk 
now  current  about  the  "  dignity  of  labour"  could  only 


Female  Handicrafts  83 

be  reduced  to  practice  ;  if,  to  begin  at  the  beginning, 
we  could  but  each  persuade  the  handful  of  young 
persons  immediately  around  us  and  under  our  influ- 
ence, that  to  make  an  elegant  dress  or  pretty  bonnet 
— nay,  even  to  cook  a  good  dinner,  or  take  pride  in  a 
neatly  kept  house,  is  a  right  creditable,  womanly 
thing  in  itself,  quite  distinct  from  the  profit  accruing 
from  it.  Also,  since  hope  is  the  mainspring  of  excel- 
lence, as  well  as  of  happiness,  in  any  calling,  let  it  be 
imprefised  on  every  one  that  her  future  advancement 
lies,  sj  iritually  as  well  as  literally,  in  her  own  hands. 
Seldom,  with  the  commonest  chance  to  start  with, 
will  a  real  good  worker  fail  to  find  employment ;  sel- 
dome;:  still,  with  diligence,  industry,  civility,  and 
punctuality,  will  a  person  of  even  moderate  skill  lack 
customers.  "Worth  of  any  kind  is  rare  enough  in  the 
world  for  most  people  to  be  thankful  to  get  it — and 
keep  it,  too.  In  these  days,  the  chief  difficulty  seems 
to  consist,  not  in  the  acknowledgment  of  merit,  but 
the  finding  of  any  merit  that  is  worth  acknowledging 
— above  all,  any  merit  that  has  the  sense  and  consis- 
tency to  acknowledge  and  have  faith  in  itself,  and  to 


84  Female  Handicrafts. 

trust  in  its  own  power  of  upholding  itself  afloat  in 
'the  very  stormiest  billows  of  the  tempestuous  world ; 
assured  with  worthy  old  Milton,  that 

"  If  virtue  feeble  were 
Heaven  itself  would  stoop  to  her." 

But  I  am  pulled  down  from  this  Utopia  of  female 
handicrafts  by  the  distant  half-smothered  laughter  of 
my  two  maid-servants,  going  cheerily  to  their  bed 
through  the  silent  house ;  and  by  the  recollection  that 
I  myself  must  be  up  early,  as  my  new  sempstress  is 
coming  to-morrow.  Well,  she  shall  be  kindly  treated, 
have  plenty  of  food  and  drink,  light  and  fire ;  and 
though  I  shall  be  stern  and  remorseless  as  fate  respect- 
ing the  quality  of  her  work,  I  shall  give  her  plenty 
of  time  to  do  it  in.  ]STo  more  will  be  expected  from 
her  than  her  capabilities  seem  to  allow  and  her  word 
promised;  still,  there  will  be  no  bating  an  inch  of 
that:  it  would  be  unfair  both  to  herself  and  me.  In 
fact,  the  very  reason  I  took  her  was  from  her  honest 
look  and  downright  sayings : — "  Ma'am,  if  you  can't 
wait,  or  know  anybody  better,  don't  employ  me ;  but, 


Female  Handicrafts.  85 

ma'am,  when  I  say  I'll  come,  I  always  do." — (P./S 
She  didn't!!) 

Honest  woman !  If  she  turns  out  fairly,  so  much 
the  better  for  us  both,  in  the  future,  as  to  gowns  and 
crown-pieces.  If  she  does  not,  I  shall  at  least  enjoy 
the  satisfaction  of  having  done  unto  her  as,  in  her 
place,  I  would  like  others  to  do  unto  me — which  sim- 
ple axiom  expresses  and  includes  all  I  have  been 
writing  on  this  subject. 


CHAPTER  Y. 

FEMALE   SERVANTS. 

THOUGH  female  servants  come  under  the  category 
of  handicrafts  women,  yet  they  form  a  distinct  class, 
very  important  in  itself,  and  essential  to  the  welfare 
of  the  community. 

A  faithful  servant — next  best  blessing,  and  next 
rarest,  after  a  faithful  friend ! — who  among  us  has  not 
had,  or  wanted,  such  a  one  ?  Some  inestimable  fol- 
lower of  the  family,  who  has  known  all  the  family 
changes,  sorrows,  and  joys;  is  always  at  hand  to  look 
after  the  petty  necessities  and  indescribably  small 
nothings  which,  in  the  aggregate,  make  up  the  sum  of 
one's  daily  comfort;  whom  one  can  trust  in  sight  and 
out  of  sight — call  upon  for  help  in  season  and  out 
of  season ;  rely  on  in  absence,  or  sickness,  or  trouble, 
to  "  keep  the  house  going,"  and  upon  whom  one  can 
at  all  times,  and  under  all  circumstances,  depend  for 


Female  Servants.  87 

that  conscientious  fidelity  of  service  which  money  can 
never  purchase,  nor  repay. 

And  this,  -what  domestic  servants  ought  to  be, 
might  be,  they  are — alas,  how  seldom  1 

Looking  round  on  the  various  households  we 
know,  I  fear  we  shall  find  that  this  relation  of  master 
(or  mistress)  and  servant — a  relation  so  necessary,  as 
to  have  been  instituted  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world,  and  since  so  hallowed  by  both  biblical  and 
secular  chronicles,  as  to  be,  next  to  ties  of  blood  and 
friendship,  the  most  sacred  bond  that  can  exist 
between  man  and  man — is,  on  the  whole,  as  badly 
fulfilled  as  any  under  the  sun. 

"Whose  fault  is  this? — the  superior's,  who,  in  the 
march  of  intellect  and  education  around  him,  losing 
somewhat  the  distinction  of  mere  rank,  yet  tries  to 
enforce  it  by  instituting  external  distinctions  impossi- 
ble to  be  maintained  between  himself  and  his  depen- 
dants?— or  the  inferior's,  who,  sufficiently  advanced 
to  detect  the  weaknesses  of  the  class  above  him, 
though  not  to  cure  his  own,  abjures  the  blind  reve- 
rence and  obedience  of  ancient  times,  without  attain- 


88  Female  Servants. 

ing  to  the  higher  spirit  of  this  our  day — when  the 
law  of  servitude  has  been  remodelled,  elevated,  and 
consecrated  by  Christianity  itself,  in  the  person  of  its 
Divine  Founder?  "He  that  is  greatest  among  you,  let 
him  be  your  servant." 

This  recognition  of  the  sanctity  of  service,  through 
the  total  and  sublime  equality  on  which,  in  one  sense, 
are  thus  placed  the  server  and  the  served,  seems  the 
point  whereon  all  minor  points  ought  to  turn,  and 
which,  in  the  solemn  responsibility  it  imposes  on  both 
parties,  ought  never  to  be  absent  from  the  mind  of 
either ;  yet  it  is  usually  one  of  the  very  last  things 
likely  to  enter  there. 

To  tell  Mrs.  Jones — who  yesterday  engaged  her 
cook  Betty  for  fourteen  pounds  a-year,  having  beaten 
her  down  from  fourteen  guineas  by  a  compromise 
about  the  beer;  and  who,  after  various  squabbles, 
finally  turned  out  pretty  Susan,  the  housemaid,  into 
the  ghastly  Yanity-fair  of  London,  for  gossiping  on 
area  steps  with  divers  "followers" — or  the  honour- 
able Mrs.  Browne  Browne,  who  keeps  Yictorine  sit- 
ting up  till  daylight  just  to  undo  her  mistress's  gown, 


Female  Servants.  89 

and  last  week  threatened,  though  she  did  not  dare,  to 
dismiss  the  fine  upper-nurse,  because,  during  the  brief 
minute  or  two  after  dessert,  when  Master  Baby  ap- 
peared, mamma,  who  rarely  sees  him  at  any  other 
time,  and  never  meddles  with  his  education,  physical 
or  moral,  was  shocked  to  hear  from  his  rosy  lips  a 
"naughty  word" — to  say  to  these  "ladies"  that  the 
"women"  they  employ  are  of  the  same  feminine  flesh 
and  blood,  would  of  course  meet  nominal  assent.  But 
to  attempt  to  get  them  to  carry  that  truth  out  practi- 
cally— to  own  that  they  and  their  servants  are  of  like 
passions  and  feelings,  capable  of  similar  elevation  or 
deterioration  of  character,  and  amenable  to  the  same 
moral  laws — in  fact,  all  "sisters"  together,  account- 
able both  to  themselves  and  to  the  other  sex  for  the 
influence  they  mutually  exercise  over  one  another, 
would,  I  fear,  be  held  simply  ridiculous.  "  Sisters  " 
indeed!  Certainly  not,  under  any  circumstances— 
except  when  Death,  the  great  Leveller,  having  perma- 
nently interposed,  we  may  safely,  over  a  few  spade- 
fuls of  earth,  venture  to  acknowledge  "  our  dear  sister 
here  departed." 


go  Female  Servants. 

I  have  gone  up  and  down  the  world  a  good  deal, 
yet  I  have  scarcely  found  one  household,  rich  or 
po  >r,  hard  or  benevolent,  Christian  or  worldly,  aristo- 
cratic or  democratic,  which,  however  correct  in  out- 
ward practice,  could  be  brought  to  own  as  a  guiding 
principle  this,  which  is  apparently  the  New-Testa- 
ment principle  with  regard  to  service  and  servants. 

This  by  no  means  implies  or  commands  equality ; 
of  all  shams,  there  is  none  so  vain  as  the  assertion  of 
that  which  does  not,  and  cannot  exist  in  this  world, 
and  which  the  highest  religious  and  social  legislation 
never  supposes  possible. 

For  instance,  my  cook  prepares  and  sends  up  din- 
ner. From  long  practice,  she  does  it  a  hundred  times 
better  than  I  could  do;  nay,  even  takes  a  pleasure 
and  pride  in  it,  for  which  I  am  truly  thankful,  and 
sincerely  indebted  to  her,  too :  for  a  good  cook  is  a 
household  blessing,  and  no  small  contributor  to 
health,  temper,  and  enjoyment.  Accordingly,  I  treat 
her  with  consideration,  and  even  enter  her  domains 
with  a  certain  respectful  awe.  But  I  do  not  invite 
her  to  eat  her  own  dinner,  or  mingle  in  the  society 


Female  Servants.  91 

v?hich  to  me  is  its  most  piquant  sauce.  She  was  not 
born  to  it,  nor  brought  up  for  it.  Good  old  soul ! 
she  would  gape  at  the  finest  bon-mot,  and  doze  over 
the  most  intellectual  conversation.  She  is  better  left 
in  peace  by  her  kitchen-fire. 

Also,  though  it  is  a  real  pleasure  to  me  to  watch 
my  neat  parlour-maid  in  and  out  of  the  drawing-room, 
to  see  by  her  bright  intelligent  face  that  she  under- 
stands much  of  whatever  talk  is  going  on,  and  may 
learn  something  by  it  too  sometimes ;  still,  I  should 
nev?r  think  of  asking  her  to  take  a  seat  among  the 
guests.  Poor  little  lass !  she  would  be  as  unhappy 
and  out  of  place  here  as  I  should  be  in  the  noisy 
Christmas  party  below-stairs,  of  which  she  is  the  very 
centre  of  attraction,  getting  more  compliments  and 
mistletoe-kisses  than  I  ever  got,  or  wished  for,  in  my 
whole  life-time.  And,  by  the  same  rule,  though  I 
like  to  see  her  prettily  dressed,  and  never  scruple  to 
tell  her  when  she  sets  my  teeth  on  edge  by  a  blue 
bow  on  a  green-cotton  gown,  I  do  not  deem  it  neces- 
sary, when  she  helps  me  on  with  my  silk  one,  to 
condole  with  her  over  the  said  cotton,  or  to  offer  her 


Q2  Female  Servants. 

the  use  of  my  toilet  and  my  chaperonage  at  the  con 
versazione  to  which  I  am  going,  where,  in  the  scores 
I  meet,  there  may  be  scarcely  any  face  more  pleasant, 
more  kindly,  or  more  necessary  to  me  than  her  own. 
Nevertheless,  each  is  in  her  station.  Providence 
fixed  both  where  they  are ;  and  while  they  there  re- 
main, unless  either  individual  is  qualified  to  change, 
neither  has  the  smallest  right  to  overstep  the  barrier 
between  them;  recognised,  perhaps,  better  tacitly 
than  openly  by  either,  but  never  by  any  ridiculous 
assumption  of  equality  denied  or  set  aside.  Yet  one 
meeting-point  there  is — far  below,  or  above,  all  exter- 
nal barriers — the  common  womanhood  in  which  all 
share.  If  anything  were  to  happen  to  my  little  maid 
— if  I  caught  her  crying  over  "father's"  letter,  or 
running  in,  laughing  and  rosy,  after  shutting  the  back 
gate  on — somebody,  I  am  afraid  my  heart  would 
warm  to  her  just  as  much  as,  though  I  never  left  my 
card  at  Buckingham  Palace,  it  is  prone  to  do  to  a  cer- 
tain Lady  there,  who  takes  early  walks,  and  goes 
tides  with  her  little  children — apparently  a  better  wo- 
man, wife,  and  mother  than  nine-tenths  of  her  sub- 


Female  Servants.  93 

jects.  Is  it  not  here,  then,  that  true  equality  lies — in 
this  recognition  of  a  common  nature ;  to  the  divinely- 
appointed  law  of  which  all  external  practice  is  to  be 
referred  ?  Would  that  both  mistresses  and  servants 
could  be  brought  to  recognise  this  equality — not  as  a 
mere  sentimental  theory,  but  as  a  practical  fact,  the 
foundation  and  starting-point  of  all  relations  between 
them! 

It  concerns  maids  just  as  much  as  mistresses ;  and 
to  them  I  wish  to  speak,  in  the  earnest  hope  that 
every  household  which  reads  this  book  will  do  what 
is  a  practice,  useful  and  excellent  in  itself,  with  all 
family  books, — send  it  down  of  quiet  evenings,  Sun- 
days and  holidays,  to  be  read  in  the  kitchen,  when 
work  is  done.  For,  work  being  done,  no  mental 
improvement  that  is  compatible  with  the  duties  of  his 
or  her  calling  ought  to  be  forbidden  any  human 
being. 

I  should  like,  first,  to  impress  upon  all  women- 
servants  how  very  much  society  depends  upon  them 
jbr  its  well-being,  physical  and  moral.  And  this,  with 
no  fear  of  thereby  increasing  their  self-conceit:  it  is 


94 


Female  Servants. 


not  responsibility,  but  the  want  or  loss  of  it,  which 
di -grades  character.  To  feel  that  you  can  or  might 
be  something,  is  often  the  first  step  towards  becoming 
it;  and  it  is  safest,  on  the  whole,  to  treat  people  as 
better  than  they  are,  if,  perchance,  conscience  may 
shame  them  into  being  what  they  are  believed,  than 
to  check  all  hope,  paralyse  all  aspiration,  and  irritate 
them,  by  the  slow  pressure  of  contemptuous  incredu- 
lity, into  becoming  actually  as  bad  as  they  are  sup- 
posed to  be.  Thus,  if  the  young  women  to  whom 
has  fallen  the  lot  of  domestic  service,  of  making 
homes  comfortable,  and  especially  of  taking  care  of 
children,  could  once  be  made  to  feel  their  own  impor 
tance  as  a  class — their  infinite  means  of  usefulness — 1 
think  it  would  stimulate  them  into  a  far  higher  feeling 
of  self-respect  and  true  respectability,  and  make  them 
of  double  value  to  the  community  at  large. 

What  do  you  "go  to  service"  for? — "Wages,  of 
course :  the  object  being  how  much  money  you  can 
earn,  and  how  easy  a  place  you  can  get  for  it.  Cha- 
racter is  likewise  indispensable  to  you ;  so  you  seek 
out  good  families,  and  keep  in  them  for  a  certain 


Female  Servants.  95 

length,  of  time.  Meanwhile,  the  most  energetic  and 
sensible  among  you  try  to  learn  as  much  as  lies  in 
your  way — but  only  as  a  means  of  bettering  your- 
selves. "  To  better  yourself,"  is  usually  held  a  satis- 
factory reason  for  quitting  the  most  satisfactory  place 
and  the  kindest  of  mistresses. 

On  the  whole,  the  bond  between  you  and  "  missis," 
is  a  mere  bargain — a  matter  of  pounds,  shillings,  and 
pence ;  you  do  just  as  much  as  she  exacts,  or  as  you 
consider  your  wages  justify  her  in  expecting  from 
you — not  a  particle  more.  As  to  rights,  privileges, 
and  perquisites,  it  is  not  unfrequently  either  a  daily 
battle  or  a  sort  of  armed  treaty  between  kitchen  and 
parlour.  The  latter  takes  no  interest  in  the  former, 
except  to  see  that  you  do  your  work  and  keep  your 
place ;  while  you  on  your  part,  except  for  gossip  or 
curiosity,  are  comfortably  indiiferent  to  "the  family." 
You  leave  or  stay  just  as  it  suits  them,  or  yourself, 
get  through  a  prescribed  round  of  work,  are  tolerably 
well-behaved,  civil,  honest — at  least  in  great  mat- 
ters— and  tell  no  lies,  or  only  as  many  white  ones  as 
will  answer  your  purposes.  And  so  you  go  on, 


96  Female  Servants. 

passing  from  "place"  to  "place,"  resting  nowhere, 
responsible  nowhere ;  sometimes  marrying,  and  drop- 
pi  ng  into  a  totally  different  sphere,  but  oftener  sti]l 
continuing  in  the  same  course  from  year  to  year,  lay- 
ing by  little  enough,  either  in  wages  or  attachment ; 
yet  doing  very  well,  in  your  own  sense  of  the  term, 
till  sickness  or  old  age  overtakes  you,  and  then — 
where  are  you  ? 

I  have  read  somewhere  that  in  our  hospitals  and 
lunatic  asylums  there  is,  next  to  governesses,  no  class 
so  numerous  as  that  of  female  domestic  servants. 

Kemember,  I  am  referring  not  to  the  lower  de- 
grees, but  to  the  respectable  among  you — those  who 
can  always  command  decent  wages  and  good  situa- 
tions, so  long  as  they  are  capable  of  taking  them.  Of 
the  meaner  class,  ignorant,  stupid,  drifted  from  house- 
hold to  household,  from  pure  incapacity  to  do  or  to 
learn  anything,  or  expelled  disgracefully  thence  for 
want  of  (poor  wretches  I  were  they  ever  taught  it  ?) 
a  sense  of  the  common  moral  necessities  of  society, 
which  objects  to  the  open  breach  of  at  least  the 
sixth,  seventh,  eighth,  and  ninth  commandments — of 


Female  Servants.  97 

these  unhappy  dregs  of  your  sisterhood,  I  cannot 
now  venture  to  speak.  I  speak  of  those,  born  ol 
respectable  parents,  starting  in  service  with  good 
prospects,  able,  generally,  to  read  and  write,  and 
gifted  with  sufficient  education  and  intelligence  to 
make  them  a  blessing  to  themselves  and  all  about 
them,  if  their  intelligence  were  not  so  often  degraded 
into  mere  "  sharpness,"  for  want  of  that  quality — rare 
in  all  classes,  but  rarest  in  yours — moral  conscien- 
tiousness. 

Why  is  it  that,  especially  in  large  towns,  a 
"  clever"  servant  is  almost  sure  to  turn  out  badly  ? 
Why  do  mistresses  complain  that,  while  one  can  get 
a  decent  servant,  a  good-natured  servant,  a  servant 
who  "does  her  work  pretty  well,  with  plenty  of 
looking  after,"  a  conscientious  servant  is  with  diffi- 
culty, if  at  all,  to  be  found  ? 

By  conscientious,  I  mean  one  who  does  her  duty — 
that  is,  the  general  business  of  her  calling — not 
merely  for  wages  or  a  character,  or  even  for  the 
higher  motive  of  "  pleasing  missis,"  but  for  the  high- 
est of  all  motives — because  it  is  her  duty.  Because, 


98  Female  Servants. 

to  cook  a  dinner,  with  care  and  without  waste  to 
k<vp  a  house  clean  and  orderly  in  every  corner,  seen 
or  not  seen  ;  to  be  scrupulously  honest  and  truthful, 
in  the  smallest  as  in  the  greatest  things ;  to  abstain 
from  pert  answers  in  the  parlour,  squabbles  in  the 
kitchen,  and  ill-natured  tittle-tattle  about  her  fellow- 
servants  or  the  family — concern  not  merely  her  po- 
sition as  a  servant,  but  her  conduct  and  character  as  a 
human  being,  accountable  to  Grod  as  much  as  the 
greatest  woman  that  ever  was  born. 

"Oh.  that's  fine  talking  1"  you  may  say;  "but 
what  can  /  do  ?  what  can  be  expected  of  me — only  a 
poor  servant  ?" 

Only  a  poor  servant!  Only  a  person  whom  a 
whole  household  is  obliged  to  trust,  more  or  less, 
with  its  comfort,  order,  property,  respectability,  peace/ 
health — I  was  going  to  add,  life ;  who,  in  times  of 
sickness  or  trouble,  knows  more  of  its  secrets  than 
nearest  acquaintance ;  who  is  aware  of  all  its  domestic 
weaknesses,  faults,  and  vexations;  to  whom  the 
"  skeleton"  said  to  be  in  every  house  must  necessarily 
be  a  thing  guessed  at,  if  not  only  too  familiar ;  on 


Female  Servants.  99 

whom  master,  mistress,  children,  or  friend,  must  be 
daily  dependent  for  numerous  small  comforts  and  at- 
tentions, scarcely  known,  perhaps,  until  they  are 
missed.  Only  a  poor  servant!  Why,  no  living 
creature  has  more  opportunity  of  doing  good  or  evil, 
and  becoming  to  others  either  a  blessing  or  a  curse, 
than  a  "  poor  servant !" 

x  Not  if  she  is  a  mere  bird  of  passage,  flitting  from 
roof  to  roof,  indifferent  to  everything  save  what  she 
may  pick  up  to  feather  her  nest  with  by  the  way. 
Not  if  she  starts  with  the  notion  that  "missis"  and 
she  are  to  be  always  at  war,  or  on  the  alert  against 
mutual  encroachments,  anxious  only  which  can  get 
the  most  out  of  the  other.  Not  if  she  takes  to 
fawning  and  flattering,  humouring  her  mistress's 
weak  points,  and  laughing  at  her  behind  her  back ; 
betraying  the  follies  or  misfortunes  of  one  household 
into  another ;  carrying  on  a  regular  system  of  double- 
faced  hypocrisy,  and  fancying  she  is  getting  her  re- 
venge, and  degrading  her  injurers,  when,  in  fact,  she 
more,  much  more,  degrades  herself. 

These   are  the  things  which  make  servants  de« 


loo  Female  Servants. 


;  not  because  they  are  servants,  but  because 
the  most  of  them,  if  they  assume  any  moral  standard 
at  all,  hold  one  so  far  below  that  of  the  class  above 
them,  that  this  class  learns  to  regard  and  treat  them 
as  an  inferior  order  of  beings. 

"What  can  you  expect  from  a  servant?"  said  tc 
me  a  lady  with  whom  I  often  used  to  argue  the  mat- 
ter —  a,  good  and  noble-minded  woman,  too,  among 
whose  few  prejudices  was  this,  fixed  and  immutable, 
against  the  whole  race  of  domestics. 

What  do  I  expect  from  a  servant?  Why,  pre- 
cisely what  I  exact  from  myself—  the  same  honesty 
of  word  and  act,  the  same  chastity  and  decency  of 
behaviour,  self-government  in  temper  and  speech, 
and  propriety  of  dress  and  manner  according  to  our 
respective  stations. 

Therefore,  in  any  disputed  point,  I,  as  being  pro- 
bably the  more  educated,  older,  if  not  wiser  of  the 
two,  feel  bound  as  much  as  possible  to  put  myself  in 
her  place,  to  try  and  understand  her  feelings  and 
character,  before  I  judge  her,  or  legislate  for  her.  I 
try  in  all  things  to  set  her  an  example  to  follow, 


Female  Servants.  ioi 

rather  tlian  abuse  her  for  faults  and  failings  which  she 
has  sense  enough  to  see  I  am  just  as  liable  to  as  she. 
I  would  rather  help  her  in  the  right  way,  than  drive 
her  into  it,  whip  in  hand,  and  take  another  road  my- 
self. Eeprove,  I  ought,  and  will,  as  often  as  she 
requires  it ;  but  reproof  is  one  thing,  scolding  another : 
she  should  never  see  that  I  find  fault  merely  from  bad 
temper,  or  for  the  pleasure  (?)  of  scolding.  Authority 
I  must  have :  it  is  for  her  good  as  well  as  mine  that 
there  should  be  only  one  mistress  in  the  house,  to 
whom  obedience  must  be  implicitly  rendered,  and 
whose  domestic  regulations  will  admit  of  no  idleness, 
carelessness,  or  irregularity;  but  I  would  scorn  to 
use  my  authority  unjustly,  or  wantonly,  or  unkindly, 
simply  for  the  sake  of  asserting  it.  If  it  is  worth 
anything  in  itself,  she  will  soon  learn  that  it  is  not  to 
be  disputed. 

And  generally,  rule,  order,  and  even  fair  reproof, 
are  among  the  last  things  that  servants  complain  o£ 
Selfishness,  stinginess,  want  of  consideration  for 
others,  are  much  oftener  the  fruitful  source  of  all 
kinds  of  domestic  rebellion,  or  the  distrust  which  is 


102  Female  Servants. 

worse  than  any  open  fight — the  sense  of  gnawing 
injustice,  which  destroys  all  respect  and  attachment 
between  "up-stairs"  and  "down-stairs." 

And  yet  the  servant  is  often  very  unjust,  to*. 
Cook,  who  has  only  to  dress  the  dinner,  and  neither 
to  work  for  it  nor  pay  for  it,  turns  up  her  nose  at 
missis's  "meanness,"  i.  e.  displeasure  at  waste  or 
extravagance — cook,  who,  if  any  crash  came,  has 
only  to  look  out  for  another  place  ;  while  missis  has 
her  five  children,  whose  little  mouths  must  be  filled, 
and  little  bodies  must  be  clothed,  and  "master," 
whom  it  breaks  her  heart  to  see  coming  in  from  the 
City,  haggard,  tired,  and  cross — a  crossness  he  cannot 
help,  poor  man! — or  sitting  down  with  a  pitiful 
patience,  sick  and  sad,  almost  wishing,  save  for  her 
and  the  children,  that  he  could  lay  his  head  on  her 
shoulder  and  die  I  What  does  cook  in  the  kitchen, 
fat  and  comfortable,  know  of  all  these  things — of  the 
agonised  struggle  for  position  and  character — nay, 
mere  bread — which  makes  the  days  and  nights  of 
thousands  of  the  professional  classes  one 'long  battle 
for  life? 


Female  Servants.  103 

Also,  the  pretty  housemaid,  who  has  her  regular 
work  and  periodical  holiday,  with  her  "  young  man  " 
coming  faithfully  on  Sundays,  about  whom,  should  he 
turn  out  false,  she  rarely  makes  a  fuss,  but  quickly 
takes  up  with  another ;  she  being  essentially  practical, 
and  mental  suffering  being  happily  out  of  her  line. 
Little  she  guesses  of  all  the  conflicts,  torments,  and 
endurances  which  fall  to  the  lot  of  natures  whom  a 
different  cultivation,  if  not  a  finer  organization,  has 
rendered  more  alive  to  another  sort  of  trouble — that 
anguish  of  spirit  which  is  worse  than  any  bodily  pain. 
Little  she  knows,  when  she  comes  in  singing  to  dust 
the  parlour,  of  many  a  cruel  scene  transacted  there ; 
or  of  many  an  hour  of  mortal  agony,  bitter  as  death, 
yet  sharpened  by  the  full  consciousness  of  youth  and 
life,  which  has  been  spent  in  the  pretty  room,  outside 
which  she  grumbles  so,  because  "miss  will  keep  her 
door  locked,  and  it'll  be  dinner  time  afore  ever  a 
body  can  get  the  beds  made." 

Servants  should  make  allowance  for  these  things, 
and  many  more  which  they  neither  know  nor  under- 
stand. They  should  respect,  not  out  of  blind  sub- 


104  Female  Servants. 

servicnce,  but  mere  common  sense,  the  great  differ 
ence  which  their  narrower  education  and  mcde  of 
thought  often  places  between  them  and  "  the  family," 
in  its  pleasures,  tastes,  and  necessities,  and,  above  all, 
in  its  sufferings.  This  difference  must  exist :  in  the 
happiest  homes,  cares  and  anxieties  must  be  for  ever 
arising,  like  sea- waves,  to  be  breasted  or  avoided,  or 
dashed  against  and  broken,  as  may  be ;  and  against 
these  the  servant  must  bear  her  part  as  well  as  the 
mistress.  But  it  is,  and  ought  to  be,  something  to 
know  how  often  a  word  or  look  of  respectful  sympa- 
thy, a  quiet  little  attention,  an  unofficious  observance 
of  one's  comfort  in  trifles,  will,  in  times  of  trouble, 
go  direct  to  the  mistress's  heart,  with  a  soothing  influ- 
ence of  which  the  servant  has  not  the  slightest  idea, 
and  which  is  never  afterwards  forgotten. 

"  Better  is  a  friend  that  is  near  than  a  brother  afar 
off;"  and  better,  many  a  time,  is  the  silent  kindness 
of  some  domestic,  who,  from  long  familiarity,  under- 
stands one's  peculiarities,  than  the  sympathy  of  many 
an  outside  friend,  who  only  rubs  against  one's  angles, 
sharpened  by  sickness  or  pain  and  often,  uninten- 


Female  Servants.  1 05 

fcionally,  hurts  more  by  futile  comforting  than,  by  total 
neglect. 

A  word  on  one  branch  of  female  service,  unde- 
niably the  most  important  of  all — the  care  and  ma- 
nagement of  children. 

I  have  always,  from  fond  experience,  held  that 
child  to  be  the  happiest  who  never  had  a  nursery- 
maid— only  a  mother.  But  this  lot  is  too  felicitous 
to  fall  to  many,  and  perhaps,  after  all,  would  not  be 
in  reality  so  Utopian  as  in  idea — particularly  to  the 
mothers.  So  let  us  grant  hired  nurses  to  be  a  natu- 
ral necessity  of  civilisation. 

Poor  things  !  they  certainly  need  consideration-,  for 
they  have  much  to  bear.  Children  are  charming — in 
the  abstract ;  but  one  sometimes  sees  the  petted 
cherubs  of  the  drawing-room  the  little  fiends  of  the 
nursery,  exhibiting,  almost  before  they  can  speak, 
passions  which  would  tempt  one  to  believe  in  original 
sin,  did  not  education  commence  with  existence.  Yet 
whatever  the  mysterious  law  of  sin  may  be  that 
Adam  made  us  liable  for,  it  is  possible  to  bring 

even  infants  under  the  dominion    of    that    law   of 

5* 


106  Female  Servants. 

love — given  by  the  Second  Adam — to  Whom  little 
children  came.  And  how?  By  practising  it  our* 
6eh  es. 

Ay;  making  allowance  for  the  necessary  short- 
comings of  all  young  things,  just  entered  on  the 
experience  of  life,  from  kittens  to  boys,  the  former 
being  much  the  least  troublesome  of  the  two,  I 
never  once  knew  or  heard  of  a  case  of  irredeemably 
"naughty"  children,  in  regard  to  whom  parents  or 
nurses,  or  both,  were  not  originally  and  principally 
to  blame.  I  never  saw  a  fretful  sullen  girl,  who  had 
not  been  made  so  by  selfishness  and  ill  humour  on 
the  *part  of  others,  or  by  tantalising  restrictions  and 
compelled  submission,  hard  enough  at  any  age,  but 
especially  in  childhood.  I  never  knew  a  revengeful 
boy,  who  had  not  first  had  the  Cain-like  spirit  put 
into  him  by  some  taunting  voice  or  uplifted  hand — 
not  a  baby  hand;  teaching  him  that  what  others 
did  he  might  do,  and  that  the  blow  he  smarted  from 
was  exactly  the  same  sort  of  pain,  and  dealt  in  the 
same  spirit,  as  that  he  delighted  to  inflict  on  mirse 
or  brother,  feeling  out  of  his  fierce  little  heart  that 


Female  Servants.  107 

this  was  the  sole  consolation  left  him  for  his  half- 
understood  but  intolerable  wrongs. 

Does  ever  any  man  or  woman  remember  the  feel- 
ing of  being  "whipped" — as  a  child — the  fierce 
anger,  the  insupportable  ignominy,  the  longing  for 
revenge,  which  blotted  out  all  thought  of  contrition 
for  the  fault  in  rebellion  against  the  punishment? 
With  this  recollection  on  their  own  parts,  I  can 

hardly  suppose  any  parents  venturing  to  inflict  it — 

••••' 

certainly  not  allowing  its  infliction  by  another,  under 
any  circumstances  whatever.  A  nurse-maid  or  do- 
mestic of  any  sort,  once  discovered  to  have  lifted  up 
her  hand  against  a  child,  ought  to  meet  instant 
severe  rebuke,  and,  on  a  repetition  of  the  offence, 
instant  dismissal. 

A  firm  will  the  nurse  must  have — which  the  child 
will  obey,  knowing  it  must  be  obeyed ;  but  it  should 
be  with  her  no  less  than  with  the  parents,  a  loving 
will  always.  I  will  not  suppose  any  young  woman 
so  mean  and  cowardly  as  to  wreak  her  whims  and 
tempers,  or  those  of  her  mistress,  on  the  helpless 


io8  Female  Servants. 

little  sinner,  who,  however  annoying,  is  after  all  such 
a  very  small  sinner.  I  cannot  believe  she  will  find  it 
so  very  hard  to  love  the  said  sinner,  who  clings  about 
h<T  helplessly  night  and  day,  in  the  total  dependence 
that  of  itself  produces  love.  And  surely,  remember- 
ing her  own  childhood  and  its  events — such  nothings 
now,  of  such  vast  moment  then,  its  unjust  punish- 
ments, unremedied  wrongs,  and  harshly-exacted 
sacrifices — things  which  in  their  resutei  may  have 
affected  her  temper  for  years,  and  even  yet  are  unfor- 
gotten — she  will  strive  as  much  as  possible  to  put 
herself  in  her  nursling's  place,  to  look  at  the  world 
from  his  point  of  view,  and  never,  as  people  often  do, 
to  expect  from  him  a  degree  of  perfection  which  one 
rarely  finds  even  in  a  grown  person ;  above  all,  never 
to  expect  from  him  anything  that  she  does  not 
practise  herself. 

It  will  be  seen  that  I  hold  this  law  of  kindness  as 
the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  education.  I  once  asked 
one— in  his  own  house  a  father  in  everything  but  the 
name,  his  authority  unquestioned,  his  least  word  held 


Female  Servants.  109 

in  reverence,  his  smallest  wish  obeyed —  '  How  did 
you  ever  manage  to  bring  up  these  children  ?"  He 
said:  "By  love." 

That  is  the  question.  It  is  because  people  have 
so  little  love  in  them,  so  little  purity  and  truth,  self- 
control  and  self-denial,  that  they  make  such  frightful 
errors  in  the  bringing  up  of  children.  When  I  go 
from  home  to  home  of  the  middle  classes,  and  see  the 
sort  of  rule  or  misrule  there,  the  countless  evil 
influences,  physical  and  spiritual,  against  which  chil- 
dren have  to  struggle,  I  declare  I  often  wonder  that  in 
the  rising  generation  there  should  be  any  good  men 
and  women.  And  when  I  glance  down  the  Times 
column  of  "Want  Places,"  and  speculate  how  few  of 
these  "nurses,"  upper  and  under  "girls,"  and 
"nursery-maids,"  have  the  smallest  knowledge  of 
their  responsibility,  or  care  about  fulfilling  it,  my 
wonder  is,  that  the  new  generation  should  grow  up  to 
manhood  and  womanhood  at  all. 

This  responsibility — if  the  nurse  ever  reflects  on  it 
— how  awful  it  is !  To  think  that  whatever  the  man 
may  become,  learned  and  great,  worldly  or  wickedj 


1 1  o  Female  Servants. 

he  is  at  present  only  the  child,  courting  her  smile  and 
coming  to  her  for  kisses,  or  hiding  from  her  frown 
and  sobbing  on  her  neck,  "  I  will  be  good,  I  will  be 
good I"  That,  be  she  old  or  young,  clever  or  igno-- 
rant,  ugly  or  pretty,  she  has,  next  to  the  mother- 
sometimes  before  the  mother,  though  that  is  a  sad 
thing  to  see — this  all-powerful  influence  over  him 
stronger  than  any  he  will  afterwards  allow  or  own. 
That  it  rests  with  herself  how  she  uses  it,  whether 
wisely  and  tenderly,  for  the  guidance  and  softening 
of  his  nature,  or  harshly  and  capriciously,  after  a 
fashion  which  may  harden  and  brutalize  him,  and 
make  him  virtually  disbelieve  in  love  and  goodness 
for  the  remainder  of  his  existence. 

Truly,  in  this  hard  world,  which  they  must  only 
too  soon  be  thrust  into,  it  is  more  essential  even  for 
boys  than  girls  that,  in  the  dawn  of  life,  while  women 
solely  have  the  management  of  them,  they  should  be 
accustomed  to  this  law  of  love — love  paramount  and 
never  ceasing,  clearly  discernible  in  the  midst  of  re- 
straint, reproof,  and  even  punishment— love  that  tries 
to  be  always  as  just  as  it  is  tender,  and  never  exer« 


Female  Servants.  1 1 1 

cines  one  of  its  rights  for  its  own  pleasure  and  good 
but  for  the  child's.  To  the  nurse,  unto  whom  it  does 
not  come  by  instinct,  as  it  does  to  parents,  the  practice 
of  it  may  be  difficult — very  difficult — but  God  forbid 
it  should  be  impossible. 

And  what  a  reward  there  is  in  this,  beyond  any 
foim  of  service — to  a  woman  I  Eespect  and  gratitude 
of  parents ;  consideration  from  all  in  the  house ;  affec- 
tion, fresh,  full,  and  free,  and  sweet  as  only  a  child's 
love  can  be.  Trying  as  the  nurse-maid's  life  is,  count 
less  as  are  her  vexations  and  pains,  how  many  a  child- 
less wife  or  solitary  old  maid  has  envied  her,  playing 
at  romps  for  kisses,  deafened  with  ever-sounding  rills 
of  delicious  laughter  all  day,  and  lying  down  at  night 
with  a  soft  sleepy  thing  breathing  at  her  side,  or  wak- 
ened of  a  morning  with  two  little  arms  tight  round 
her  neck,  smotheringly  expressing  a  wealth  of  love 
that  kingdoms  could  not  buy. 

And  when  she  grows  an  old  woman,  if,  as  often 
happens  to  domestic  servants,  she  does  not  marry,  but 
remains  in  service  all  her  life,  it  must  be  her  own 
fault  if  nurse's  position  is  not  an  exceedingly  happy 


112  Female  Servants. 

and  honoured  one.  Not  perhaps,  in  our  modern 
times,  after  the  fashion  of  her  order  in  novels  and 
plays — from  Juliet's  nurse  downwards — but  still 
abounding  in  comfort  and  respect.  Most  likely,  she 
still  lives  in  the  family — anyhow,  it  will  be  strange  if 
her  grown-up  "  children  "  do  not  now  and  then  come 
and  see  her,  to  gossip  over  those  old  times,  which 
grow  the  more  precious  the  further  we  leave  them 
behind.  In  time  these  children's  children — with  their 
other  parent,  who  knew  not  nurse,  and  whom  nurse 
still  views  with  rather  suspicious  curiosity — come  and 
chatter  to  her,  eager  to  hear  all  about  "  pa  "  or  "  ma ;" 
how  "ma"  looked  when  she  was  a  little  baby; 
whether  "pa"  was  a  good  boy  or  a  naughty  boy, 
some  thirty  odd  years  ago.  And — a  remarkable 
moral  fact! — the  chances  are  that  "pa"  will  gravely 
confess  to  the  latter ;  while  old  nurse,  seeing  all  things 
through  the  softening  glass  of  time,  will  protest  that 
neither  he  nor  any  of  the  children  ever  gave  her  the 
least  trouble  since  they  were  born ! 

I  have  said  a  good  deal,  and  yet  it  seems  as  if  I 
had  almost  left  the  subject  where  I  found  it,  it  is  so 


Female  Servants.  113 

wide.  Let  me  end  it  in  words  which,  coming  into 
my  mind  now,  transcend  all  minej  and  yet,  I  trust, 
have  been  made  the  foundation  of  them;  in  which 
case  I  need  not  fear.  Words  open  alike  to  master 
and  servant — studied  by  how  few,  yet  in  which  lies 
the  only  law  of  life  for  all : — 

"  Servants,  obey  in  all  things  your  masters  according 
to  the  flesh  ;  not  with  eye-service,  as  men-pleasers ;  but  in 
singleness  of  heart,  fearing  God:  and  whatsoever  ye  do, 
do  it  heartily,  as  to  the  Lord,  and  not  unto  men ;  ~know* 
ing  that  of  the  Lord  ye  shall  receive  the  KEWABD." 


CHAPTEK  VI. 

THE  MISTRESS  OF  A  FAMIIA. 

THE  house-mother!  what  a  beautiful,  comprehensive 
word  it  is!  how  suggestive  of  all  that  is  wise  and 
kindly,  comfortable  and  good!  Surely,  whether  the 
lot  comes  to  her  naturally,  in  the  happy  gradations  of 
wifehood  and  motherhood — or  as  the  maiden-mistress 
of  an  adopted  family, — or,  as  one  could  find  many 
instances  in  this  our  modern  England,  when  the  pos- 
session of  a .  large  fortune,  received  or  earned,  gives 
her,  with  all  the  cares  and  duties,  many  of  the  advan- 
tages of  matronhood — every  such  woman  must  ac- 
knowledge that  it  is  a  solemn  as  well  as  a  happy 
thing  to  be  the  mistress  of  a  family. 

Easy,  pleasant,  and  beautiful  as  it  is  to  obey,  de- 
velopment of  character  is  not  complete  when  the 
person  is  fitted  only  to  obey.  There  comes  a  time  in 
most  women's  lives  when  they  have  to  learn  how  to 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  1 1 5 

govern — first,  themselves,  then  those  about  them.  I 
say,  to  learn ;  because  it  has  to  be  learnt.  Love  of 
arbitrary  power  may  come  by  instinct ;  as  in  the  very 
youngest  children  you  may  see  one  fierce  little  spirit 
to  which  all  the  rest,  whether  older  or  younger,  suc- 
cumb :  but  to  domineer  and  to  rule  are  two  distinct 
arts,  proceeding  often  from  totally  opposite  charac- 
ters. 

The  most  of  women  are,  in  their  youth,  at  least,  by 
both  habit  and  temperament,  as  I  once  heard  it  ex- 
pressed by  a  very  acute  thinker — decidedly  "  adjec- 
tive." Few  of  them  have  ever  had  the  chance  of 
becoming  a  "noun  substantive" — (whether  or  not 
that  be  a  natural  or  enviable  position).  They  have 
been  accustomed  all  their  lives  hitherto  to  be  govern- 
ed, if  not  guarded ;  protected  or  unprotected,  as  may 
be;  but  rarely  placed  in  circumstances  where  they 
had  actively  to  assume  the  guardianship  or  rule  of 
others.  This,  then,  if  it  falls  to  their  lot,  they  have 
to  acquire,  difficultly,  painfully :  often  with  no  prepa- 
ration, or  with  what  is  worse  than  none,  a  complete 
ignorance  that  there  is  anything  to  be  acquired! 


ii 6  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

They  expect  all  is  to  come  quite  naturally — the  due 
arrangement  and  superintendence  of  a  house — the 
regulation  of  an  income — the  guidance  and  control 
of  servants. 

And  yet,  every  family  is  a  little  kingdom  in  itself: 
the  members  and  followers  of  which  are  often  as  hard 
to  manage  as  any  of  the  turbulent  governments  whose 
discords  convulse  our  world.  "  "Woe  to  thee,  0  land, 
v  when  thy  king  is  a  child  1"  And  woe  to  thee,  0 
household,  when  thy  mistress  is — worse  than  a  child — 
a  foolish,  ignorant,  and  incapable  woman. 

"With  families,  as  with  kingdoms,  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal evidences  of  misgovernment  is  at  the  working 
root  of  the  little  community — the  servants.  Why  is 
it  that  in  one  half  of  the  families  one  knows,  the 
grand  burden  of  complaint  is — servants?  Ts  the 
fault  altogether  on  one  side  ? — which  side,  either 
party  being  left  to  decide :  or  is  it  a  natural  conse- 
quence of  their  relative  positions,  as  ruler  and  ruled  ? 
a  state  of  things  equally  hateful  and  inevitable,  for 
which  nobody  is  to  blame? 
Let  us  see — taking  at  random  the  most  prominent 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  1 1 


specimens  of  mistresses  of  families,  which  present 
themselves  to  every  one's  notice  who  is  at  all  familiar 
with  middle-class  society.  These,  I  must  distinctly 
state,  are  in  every  case  generalisations  of  a  class,  and 
of  no  personal  application ;  which,  indeed,  would  mar 
the  whole  moral  of  these  imaginary  portraits,  by 
giving  results  and  unfairly  omitting  causes. 

For  instance,  there  is  Mrs.  Smith.  You  will  never 
once  enter  that  lady's  house  without  hearing  of  a 
change  in  its  domestic  arrangements ;  you  will  hardly 
knock  at  the  door  four  successive  weeks,  without  its 
being  opened  by  a  strange  damsel.  To  count  the 
number  of  servants  Mrs.  Smith  has  had  since  her 
marriage,  would  puzzle  her  eldest  boy,  even  though 
he  is  just  going  into  his  multiplication-table.  Out  of 
some  scores,  surely  all  could  not  have  been  so  bad ; 
yet,  to  hear  her,  no  imps  of  Satan  in  female  form 
could  be  worse  than  those  with  which  her  house  has 
been  haunted — cooks  who  sold  the  dripping,  and 
gave  the  roast-meat  to  the  policeman;  housemaids 
who  could  only  scrub  and  scour,  and  wait  at  table 
and  clean  plate,  and  keep  tidy  to  answer  the  door 


1 1 8  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

and  who  actually  had  never  learned  to  sew  neatly,  01 
to  get  up  fine  linen!  Nurses  wickedly  pretty,  or 
thinking  themselves  so,  who  .had  the  atrocious  impu- 
dence to  buy  a  bonnet  "just  like  my  last  new  one," 
with  flowers  inside !  Poor  Mrs.  Smith !  Her  whole 
soul  is  engrossed  in  the  servant-question.  Her  whole 
life  is  a  domestic  battle — of  the  mean,  scratch-and- 
snap,  spit-and-snarl  kind.  She  has  a  handsome 
house;  she  gives  good  wages — that  is,  her  liberal 
husband  does — but  not  a  servant  will  stay  with  her. 

And  why  ?  Because  she  is  not  fitted  to  be  a  mis- 
tress. She  cannot  rule — she  can  only  order  about; 
she  cannot  reprove — she  can  only  scold.  Possessing 
no  real  dignity,  she  is  always  trying  to  assert  its 
semblance;  having  little  or  no  education,  she  is  the 
hardest  of  all  judges  upon  ignorance.  Though  so 
tenacious  of  her  prerogative,  that  she  dismissed  Sally 
Baines  for  imitating  missis's  bonnet — (Heaven  forgive 
you,  Mrs.  Smith !  but  do  you  know  where  you  might 
find  that  poor  pretty  sixteen-year  old  child  now  ?) — 
still,  the  more  intelligent  of  her  servants  soon  find  out 
that  she  is  "  not  a  lady ;"  that,  in  fact,  if  one  were  to 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  119 

strip  off  her  satin  gowns,  and  sell  her  carriage,  and 
make  her  inhabit  the  basement-story  instead  of  the 
drawing-room  of  her  handsome  house,  Mrs.  Smith 
would  be  not  one  whit  superior  to  her  own  cook. 
Her  quick-witted  parlour-maid  is  really  her  superior, 
and  fully  aware  of  it  too,  as  you  may  see  from  the 
way  in  which  she  contrives  to  wind  missis  round  her 
little  finger,  get  her  own  way  entirely,  and  rule  the 
house-arrangements  from  attic  to  cellar.  This  being 
not  unprofitable,  she  will  probably  outstay  many  of 
the  other  servants — not  because  she  is  any  better  than 
the  rest,  but  merely  cleverer. 

Miss  Brown's  household  is  on  quite  a  different  plan. 
You  will  never  hear  the  small  domestic  "rows" — the 
petty  squabbles  between  mistress  and  maid,  injustice 
on  one  side  and  impertinence  on  the  other.  Miss 
Brown  would  never  dream  of  quarrelling  with  "a 
servant,"  any  more  than  with  her  dog  or  cat,  or  some 
other  inferior  animal.  She  strictly  fulfils  her  duty  as 
mistress ;  gives  regular  wages, — very  moderate,  cer- 
tainly, for  her  income  is  much  below  both  her  birth 
and  her  breeding;  exacts  no  extra  service;  and  ia 


120  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

rigidly  particular  in  allowing  her  servants  the  duo 
holidays — namely,  to  church  every  other  Sunday,  and 
a  day  out  once  a-month.  Her  housekeeping  is  econo- 
mical without  being  stingy;  everything  is  expected  to 
go  on  like  clock-work ;  if  otherwise,  immediate  dis- 
missal follows,  for  Miss  Brown  dislikes  to  have  to 
find  fault,  even  in  her  own  lofty  and  distant  way. 
She  is  a  conscientious,  honourable  lady,  who  exacts 
no  more  than  she  performs ;  and  her  servants  respect 
her.  But  they  stand  in  awe  of  her ;  they  do  not  love 
her.  There  is  a  wide  gulf  between  their  humanity 
and  hers — you  never  would  believe  that  they  and  she 
shared  the  same  flesh  and  blood  of  womanhood,  and 
would  end  in  the  same  dust  and  ashes.  She  is  well 
served,  well  obeyed,  and  justly;  but — and  that  is 
justice,  too — she  is  neither  sympathised  with  nor  con- 
fided in.  Perhaps  this  truth  may  have  struck  home 
to  her  sometimes ;  as  when  her  maid,  who  had  been 
ill  unnoticed  for  months,  in  waiting  on  her  one  morn- 
ing dropped  down,  and — died  that  night ;  or  when, 
the  day  there  came  news  of  the  battle  of  Inkermann, 
she  sat  hour  after  hour  with  the  Times  in  her  lap,  in 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  121 

her  gloomy,  lonely  dining-room,  and  not  a  soul  came 
nigh  her  to  ask  or  learn  from  her  speechless  looks 
"  what  of  young  Captain  Brown  ?" 

In  the  Jones's  highly  respectable  family  are  most 
respectable  servants,  clever,  quick,  attentive,  and 
fully  conscious  of  their  own  value  and  capabilities. 
They  dress  quite  as  finely  as  "the  family,"  go  out 
with  parasols  on  Sundays,  and  have  their  letters 
directed  "  Miss."  They  guard  with  jealousy  all  their 
perquisites  and  privileges — from  the  tradesmen's 
Christmas-boxes,  and  the  talk  outside  the  nearly- 
closed  front-door  with  unlimited  "followers,"  to  the 
dearly-prized  right  of  a  pert  answer  to  missis  when 
she  ventures  to  complain.  And  missis — a  kind,  easy 
soul — is  rather  afraid  of  so  doing ;  and  endures  many 
an  annoyance,  together  with  a  few  real  wrongs, 
rather  than  sweep  her  house  with  the  besom  of  righ- 
teous destruction,  and  annihilate  in  their  sprouting 
evils  that  will  soon  grow  up  like  rampant  weeds. 
This  is  no  slight  regret  to  Mrs.  Jones's  friends,  who 
see  that  a  little  judicious  authority,  steadily  and  un- 
varyingly asserted — a  little  quiet  exercise  of  will, 

6 


1 22  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

instead  of  fidgety  or  nervous  fault-finding  and  keed 
loss  suspiciousness,  would  make  matters  all  straight, 
and  reduce  this  excellent  and  liberal  establishment, 
from  the  butler  down  to  the  little  kitchen-maid,  to 
the  safe  level  of  a  limited  monarchy.  Instead  of 
which  there  is  a  loose  sway,  which  often  borders 
upon  that  most  dangerous  of  all  governments — do- 
mestic republicanism. 

This  last  is  the  government  at  Mrs.  Kobinson's. 
She  has  long  let  the  reins  go — leaned  back,  and 
slumbered.  Where  her  household  will  drive  to, 
Heaven  only  knows!  The  house  altogether  takes 
care  of  itself.  The  mistress  is  too  gentle  to  blame 
anybody  for  anything — too  lazy  to  do  anything  her- 
self, or  show  anybody  else  how  to  do  it.  I  suppose 
she  has  eyes,  yet  you  might  write  your  name  in  dust- 
tracks  on  every  bit  of  furniture  in  her  house.  She 
doubtless  likes  to  wear  a  clean  face  and  a  decent 
gown,  for  she  has  tastes  not  unrefined ;  yet  in  Betty, 
her  maid-of-all-work,  both  these  advantages  are  appa- 
rently impossible  luxuries.  Mrs.  Eobinson  can't,  OT 
believes  she  can't,  afford  what  is  called  a  "  good"  ser- 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  1 23 

vant — that  is,  an  efficient,  responsible  woman,  who 
requires  equivalent  wages  for  valuable  services; 
therefore  she  does  with  poor  Betty,  a  very  well- 
meaiiing  girl,  though  quite  incompetent  for  the  duties 
she  undertakes,  and  never  likely  to  be  instructed 
therein.  For  it  never  seems  to  strike  Betty,  or  her 
mistress  either,  that  though  poverty  may  bs  inevita- 
ble, dire  and  tatters  are  not — that  a  girl,  if  ever  so 
ignorant,  can  generally  be  taught — a  house,  if  ever 
so  small  and  ill-furnished,  can  at  least  be  clean — a 
dinner,  if  ever  so  plain,  nay,  scanty,  may  be  well 
cooked  and  well  arranged ;  and  however  the  servants 
fall  short,  every  mistress  has  always  her  own  intelli- 
gent brain,  and  has,  at  the  worst,  her  own  pair  of 
active  hands.  Did  you  ever  consider  that  last  pos- 
sibility, my  good  Mrs.  Eobinson?  "Would  Betty 
honour  you  less  if,  every  morning,  she  saw  you  dust 
a  chair  or  two,  or  hunt  out  lurking  ambushes  of 
spiders — shaming  her  into  knowledge  and  industry 
by  the  conviction,  that  what  she  left  undone  her 
mistress  would  certainly  do?  Would  you  be  less 
amiable  in  your  husband's  eyes  by  the  discovery  that 


1 24  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

it  was  you  yourself  who  cooked,  and  then  taught 
,  to  cook,  his  comfortable  dinner?  Would  he 
have  less  pleasure  in  petting  your  dainty  fingers  for 
seeing  on  them  a  few  needle-marks,  caused  by  the 
sewing  of  tidy  chair-covers,  or  the  mending  of  clean 
threadbare  carpets,  so  as  to  make  the  best  of  his 
plain,  quiet  home,  where  Heaven  has  at  once  denied 
the  blessing  and  spared  the  responsibility  of  chil- 
dren ?  But  you  may  be  as  ignorant  as  Betty  herself. 
I  am  afraid  you  are.  Let  me  give  you  a  golden  rule 
— "Never  expect  a  servant  to  do  that  which  you 
cannot  do,  or,  if  necessary,  will  learn  to  do,  your- 
self." 

Mrs.  Johnson,  now,  will  be  a  very  good  illustration 
of  this.  I  doubt  if  she  is  any  richer  than  Mrs. 
Eobinson ;  for  a  few  years  after  her  marriage,  I 
know  it  was  very  uphill- work  indeed  with  the  young 
couple ;  especially  fbr  the  wife,  who,  married  at  nine- 
teen, was  as  ignorant  as  any  school-girl.  She  and 
her  cook  are  reported  to  have  studied  Mrs.  Glass 
together.  To  this  day,  I  fancy  the  praise  of  any 
special  dinner  would  be  modestly  received  as  con- 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  1 25 

jointly  due  to  "missis  and  me."  So,  doubtless,  would 
any  grand  effect  in  household  arrangements,  though, 
where  all  goes  on  so  smoothly  and  orderly,  that  the 
most  sudden  visitor  would  only  necessitate  an  extra 
knife  and  fork,  and  a  clean  pair  of  sheets  in  the  spare 
room,  there  is  not  much  opportunity  for  any  coup 
d'etat  in  the  housemaid-line.  As  for  the  nursery -staff 
but  since  her  boys  could  walk  alone,  Mrs.  John- 
son has  abolished  the  nursery  altogether.  If  she  has 
no  more  children,  these  two  lads  will  have  the 
infinite  blessing  of  never  being  "managed"  by  any 
womenkind  save  their  mother.  Of  course  it  is  a 
busy,  and  often  hard  life  for  her;  and  her  hand- 
maidens know  it.  They  see  her  employed  from 
morning  to  night,  happy  and  merry  enough,  but 
always  employed.  They  themselves  would  be  asham- 
ed to  be  lazy  ;  they  would  do  anything  in  the  world 
to  lighten  things  to  missis.  If  little  delicate  Fred  is 
ailing,  Jane  will  sit  up  half  the  night  with  him,  and 
still  get  up  at  five  next  morning.  Mary,  the  cook, 
does  not  grumble  at  any  accidental  waiting,  if  missis, 
in  her  sewing,  has  the  slightest  need  of  Jane.  Both 


1 26  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

would  work  their  fingers  to  the  bone  any  day  to  save 
her  the  least  trouble  or  pain.  Not  a  cloud  comes 
across  her  path — not  a  day  of  illness — her  own  or  her 
little  ones' — shadows  her  bright  looks,  but  is  felt  as 
an  absolute  grief  in  the  kitchen.  Jane's  face,  as  she 
opens  the  front  door,  is  a  sufficient  indication  to  all 
friends  as  to  how  things  are  with  "the  family  ;"  and 
if  you,  being  very  intimate,  make  any  chance  inquiry 
of  Mary  in  the  street,  ten  to  one  she  will  tell  you 
everything  Mrs.  Johnson  has  done,  and  exactly  how 
she  has  looked,  for  a  week  past,  ending  with  a  grave, 
respectful  remark,  ventured  in  right  of  her  own  ten 
years  of  eldership,  that  she  "is  afraid  missis  is  wear- 
ing herself  out,  and  would  you  please  to  come  and 
see  her?" 

And  missis,  on  her  side,  returns  the  kindly  interest. 
She  likes  to  hear  anything  and  everything  that  her 
damsels  may  have  to  tell,  from  the  buying  of  a  new 
gown  to  the  birth  of  a  new  nephew.  Any  relatives  of 
theirs  who  may  appear  in  the  kitchen,  she  generally 
goes  to  speak  to,  and  welcomes  always  kindly.  She 
is  glad  to  encourage  family  affection,  believing  it  to 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  127 

be  quite  as  necessary  and  as  beautiful  in  a  poor 
housemaid  as  in  a  sentimental  lady.  Love,  also.  She 
has  not  the  smallest  objection  to  let  that  young  baker 
come  in  to  tea  on  Sundays,  entering  honestly  at  the 
front-door,  without  need  of~sneaking  behind  area- 
railings.  And  if,  on  such  Sundays,  Jane  is  rather 
absent  and  awkward,  with  a  tendency  to  forget  the 
spoons,  and  put  hot  plates  where  cold  should  be,  her 
mistress  pardons  all,  and  tempers  master's  indig- 
nation by  reminding  him  of  a  certain  summer,  not 

ten  years  back,  when ,  &c.   Upon  which  he  kisses 

his  little  wife,  and  grows  mild. 

Thus  the  family  have  no  dread  of  u  followers,"  no 
visions  of  burglarious  sweethearts  introduced  by  the 
kitchen- window,  or  tribes  of  locust  "cousins"  creating 
a  famine  in  the  larder.  Having  always  won  confi- 
dence, Mrs.  Johnson  has  little  fear  of  being  deceived. 
When  pretty  Jane  can  make  up  her  mind,  doubtless 
there  will  occur  that  most  creditable  event  to  both 
parties — the  maid  being  married  frem  her  mistress's 
house.  Of  course,  Jane  would  be  a  great  loss,  or 
Maiy  either ;  but  Mary  is  growing  middle-aged,  and 


1 28  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

is  often  seen  secretly  petting  Master  Fred,  as  only  old 
maid-servants  do  pet  the  children  of  "the  family." 
Freddy  says,  she  has  promised  never  to  leave  him ; 
and  her  mistress,  who  probably  knows  as  much  of 
Mary's  affairs  as  anybody,  does  not  think  it  likely  she 
ever  will. 

The  Johnson  household  is  the  best  example  I  know 
of  the  proper  relation  between  kitchen  and  parlour. 
True,  Jane  and  Mary  are  estimable  women — might 
have  been  such  in  any  "  place ;"  but  I  will  do  human 
nature  the  justice  to  believe,  that  the  class  of  domestic 
servants  contains  many  possible  Janes  and  Marys,  if 
only  their  good  qualities  could  be  elicited  by  a  few 
more  Mrs.  Johnsons. 

It  is  an  obvious  law,  that  any  movement  for  social 
advancement  must  necessarily  commence  in  the  higher 
class,  and  gradually  influence  the  lower.  By  higher 
and  lower,  I  mean  simply  as  regards  moral  and  intel- 
lectual cultivation,  which,  continued  through  genera- 
tions and  become  a  habit  of  life,  makes,  and  is  the 
only  thing  tljat  does  or  ought  to  make,  the  difference 
between  master  and  servant,  patrician  and  plebeian 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  129 

Mrs.  Thomson,  descended  from  the  clan  Kobertson,  a 
very  superior  family,  has  a  great  deal  more  chance  of 
being  a  lady  than  Peg  Thompson  her  nursery-maid, 
whose  father,  grandfather,  &c.,  have  been  farm- 
labourers.  But  if,  by  any  of  her  not  rare  freaks, 
Dame  Nature  should  have  placed  in  Peg's  uncouth 
body  the  soul  of  a  gentlewoman,  together  with  that 
rare  quality  of  rising,  which,  in  spite  of  circumstances, 
enables  many  refined  minds  to  reach  their  natural 
level — if  so,  Mrs.  Thomson  should  not  have  the 
slightest  objection  to  assist  that  desirable  end  in 
every  possible  way.  Nay,  finally,  it  might  be  rather 
a  pleasure  to  her  some  day  to  sit  at  table  with  Miss 
Margaret  Thompson ;  and  she  should  altogether  scorn 
the  behaviour  of  that  fine  gentleman  who  once  "cut" 
honest  Dodsley  the  publisher-footman — of  whom  the 
meek  old  fellow  only  observed:  "Yes,  he  knows  me; 
I  used  to  wait  behind  his  chair." 

But  since  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  circumstance 
have  made  some  to  be  mistresses  and  others  servants 
— giving  to  the  one  incalculably  more  chances  of 

superiority  than  the  other,  would  it  not  be  as  well  if 

6* 


130  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

more  ladies  would  try  to  prove  this  superiority  instead 
of  resting  content  in  the  mere  assertion  thereof?  The 
proverb  asserts,  "  A  good  mistress  will  make  a  good 
servant."  "Whether  this  is  possible  or  not,  all  will 
agree  that  the  best  servant  in  the  world  cannot  make 
a  good  mistress. 

The  reformatory  process  must  necessarily  com- 
mence with  the  superior. 

Also  the  root  of  all  improvement  must  be  the  mis- 
tress's own  conviction,  religious  and  sincere,  of  the 
truth,  more  than  once  already  urged  here,  but  which 
cannot  be  too  often  referred  to,  that  she  and  her  ser- 
vants share  one  common  womanhood  :  alike  in  its 
mental  and  physical  weaknesses ;  in  its  capabilities  of 
advancement  and  deterioration ;  in  its  tempers,  pas- 
sions, and  prejudices :  with  aims,  hopes,  or  interests 
distinctly  defined,  and  pursued  with  equal  eagerness  ; 
with  a  life  here,  meant  as  a  school  for  the  next  life  ; 
with  an  immortal  soul. 

A  lady  who  can  once  be  made  to  feel  that,  so  far  as 
any  human  soul  can  be  made  responsible  for  another, 
she  is  responsible  for  that  of  every  domestic  who 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  131 

enters  her  house,  has  gained  one  step  from  which  she 
is  not  likely  ever  to  backslide.  And  if  accountable 
for  the  soul — the  better  part, — so  also  for  the  body. 
Since,  with  advanced  knowledge,  we  are  all  now 
beginning  to  recognise — some  with  the  stolid  assent 
of  materialism,  and  some  with  the  Christian's  holy 
wonder  at  this  human  machine,  made  too  wonderfully 
to  be  made  for  nothing,  and  by  no  one, — how  myste- 
riously soul  and  body  act  and  react  upon  one  another; 
how  one  half  of  the  shortcomings  of  the  spirit  springs 
from  mere  bodily  causes ;  and  how  a  healthy  soul  can 
stimulate  even  the  poorest  and  most  unsound  dwell- 
ing-house of  flesh  and  blood  into  something  of  its 
own  beauty  and  divineness. 

And  yet  there  is  a  saying  that  one  sometimes  hears, 
and  sees  silently  in  action  perpetually — "  Anything 
will  do  for  the  servants."  Kitchen  and  parlour  are 
placed  on  quite  a  different  footing ;  not  only  with  re- 
gard to  coarser  food — reasonable  enough  sometimes, 
when  the  parlour  has  nice  or  sickly  tastes,  and  the 
kitchen  is  blessed  with  the  wholesome  omnivorous 
appetite  of  hard  work  and  an  easy  mind — but  in  the 


132  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

regular  routine  of  daily  life.  "  Late  to  bed  and  eai  Ly 
to  rise,"  yet  still  expected  to  be  "  both  healthy  and 
:''  compelled  to  sleep  in  damp,  heat,  uncleanli- 
ness,  or  ill-ventilation — anything  is  good  enough  for 
a  "  servant's  bedroom ;"  allowed  no  time  for  personal 
attention,  sewing,  or  mending,  yet  required  to  be 
always  "  tidy  ;"  kept  at  work  constantly,  without  re- 
gard to  how  much  and  what  sort  of  work  each  per- 
son's strength  can  bear ;  yet  supposed  to  be  capable 
of  working  on  for  ever,  without  that  occasional  inter- 
mixture of  "play," — not  idleness,  but  wholesome 
amusement — without  which  every  human  being  grows 
dull,  dispirited,  falls  into  ill-humour,  and  finally  into 
ill-health.  Truly  it  often  makes  one's  heart  ache  to 
think  of  the  sort  of  life  even  well-meaning  mistresses 
make  their  servants  lead ;  and  it  would  be  curious, 
were  it  not  so  melancholy,  to  pause  and  consider,  if 
in  all  one's  acquaintance  there  are  half-a-dozen  ladies 
under  whom,  did  fate  compel,  one  would  choose  to 
"  go  into  service." 

My  dear  madam — who  may  be  opening  your  eyes 
widely  at  this  heterodox  view  of  the  question — you 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  133 

have  no  right-to  keep  a  servant  at  all  unless  you  can 
keep  her  comfortable.  You  did  not  buy  "her,  body 
and  soul,  like  a  negro  slave ;  you  only  took  her  on 
hired  service,  to  fulfil  certain  duties,  which  you  must 
exact  from  her  kindly  and  firmly,  for  her  good  aa 
well  as  yours :  but  you  have  no  right  to  any  more. 
Except  so  far  as  nature  and  education  have  instituted 
a  difference  between  you,  you  are  not  justified  in 
placing  either  her  enjoyments  or  necessities  on  a 
lower  level  than  your  own.  The  same  sanitary  laws, 
of  physical  and  mental  well-being,  apply  to  you  both, 
and  neither  can  break  them,  or  be  allowed  to  break 
them,  with  impunity. 

Moral  laws,  also.  Mrs.  Smith  thinks  it  is  against 
her  that  poor  Sally  Baines  sinned  in  the  matter  of  the 
bonnet.  Foolish  Mrs.  Smith !  Suppose  you  were  to 
purchase  at  Swan  and  Edgar's  that  hundred-guinea 
Cachemire  labelled  "the  Queen's  choice" — whom 
would  you  harm,  her  Majesty  or  yourself?  So, 
when  your  Emma  or  Betsy  buys  a  silk  gown  and  a 
twelve-shilling  parasol,  she  errs,  and  grievously,  too : 
but  it  is  against  herself.  She  lowers  her  own  self- 


134  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

respect  by  striving  to  maintain  a  false  position, 
wastes  in  shabby  showiness  the  money  that  she  ought 
to  lay  up  for  sickness,  old  age,  or  marriage,  and  the 
happy  duty  of  helping  others ;  loses  the  simple  neat- 
ness befitting  the  respectable  maid-servant,  and  be* 
comes  ridiculous  as  the  sham  fine-lady. 

But  in  this  complaint,  only  too  general,  of  servants 
"dressing  above  their  place,"  the  mistress's  own 
example  is  the  best  warning  and  reproof:  a  thing,  my 
poor  Mrs.  Smith,  which  it  would  be  vain  to  look  for 
from  you.  Equally  vain  in  another  matter,  which 
applies  as  stringently  to  that  wretched  Sally  Baines — 
whom,  if  she  now  came  drunk  and  flaunting  to  your 
area-gate,  you  would  hustle  away  in  charge  of  X  25 — 
as  to  your  own  little  daughter,  whom  you  hope  one 
day  to  see  Mrs.  Somebody,  and  will  take  all  available 
maternal  means  to  that  desirable  end. 

You  do  not.  think  it,  but  the  kitchen  is  made  of 
flesh  and  blood  as  well  as  the  parlour.  However  you 
may  insist  upon  "No  followers  allowed,"  Emma  will 
meet  her  sweetheart  round  the  corner,  and  cook  will 
startle  your  nerves  after  five  years'  service  with 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  135 

"  Please  suit  yourself,  marm,  as  I'm  a-going  to  be  mar- 
ried." Happy  for  you  if  no  worse  occurs  than  this. 
For  you  are  exacting  an  injustice — an  impossibility : 
you  are  instituting  a  state  of  things  which,  from  its 
very  unnaturalness,  gives  a  premium  to  deceit  and 
immorality.  Love — nay,  I  beg  your  pardon;  you 
don't  understand  what  that  word  means — but  court- 
ing, which  looks  so  pretty  in  the  drawing-room,  you 
treat  as  a  crime  in  the  kitchen;  and  therefore  it  is 
very  likely  to  become  such.  An  honest  lover — as 
much  Emma's  right  as  your  own  when  you  took  up 
with  Mr.  Smith — you  degrade  into  a  "follower,"  who 
has  to  sneak  about  areas,  hide  in  coal-cellars,  and  be 
gossiped  with  behind  doors.  Consequently,  there  can 
be  no  inquiry  into  his  character,  no  open  acknowledg- 
ment of  an  honourable  attachment,  which  neither 
mistress  nor  maid  need  ever  be  ashamed  of;  every- 
thing goes  on  underhand,  and  if  discovered  at  all,  is 
generally  in  such  a  miserable  form  as  to  make  pru- 
dent Mrs.  Smiths  firmer  than  ever  in  their  impossible 
edict,  never  obeyed.  "Whilst  other  women,  accus- 
tomed to  regard  love  ani  marriage  according  to  the 


136  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

standard  of  the  better  classes,  are  shocked  at  the  low 
tone  of  thought  on  such  subjects,  which  inevitably 
results  in  that  low  tone  of  morals  almost  universally 
prevalent  among  the  ranks  from  which  female  ser- 
vants are  recruited. 

It  is  worth  while  trying  whether — since  dark  deeds 
and  ill  feelings  can  only  be  conquered  by  being 
brought  to  the  light — mistresses  should  not  make  the 
experiment  of  saying,  as  every  mother  ought  to  say  to 
her  daughters — (alas,  how  few  do  I  and  what  a  train 
of  horrible  evils  often  results  from  that  want  of  confi- 
dence between  mother  and  child !) — "Be  honest  with 
me.  I  don't  expect  from  you  more  than  human 
nature  is  capable  of.  I  expect  you  to  fall  in  love  and 
be  married :  all  I  desire  is  that  you  should  love  wor- 
thily, and  marry  wisely.  Only  be  honest.^  No  false- 
hoods, no  concealments  of  any  kind.  Let  everything 
be  plain,  open,  and  above-board;  tell  the  truth,  and 
don't  be  afraid." 

Perhaps,  then  we  should  have  less  of  these  frightful 
cases  of  shame  and  sorrow,  or  those  hasty  marriages, 
of  which  one  so  often  hears — when  a  decent,  respecta- 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  137 

ble  girl,  after  a  few  months'  wedlock,  comes  back  tc 
lier  old  mistress,  ragged  and  destitute,  with  a  husband 
in  jail  for  bigamy,  or  against  whom  she  has  to  swear 
the  peace,  for  that  brutal  ill-usage  which  makes  us 
English  disgraced  abroad  as  "the  nation  that  beats  its 
wives." 

In  households  as  in  states  there  must  be  one  ruling 
head — and  there  ought  to  be  but  one.  Every  person 
knows  what  sort  of  system  that  is,  which  I  have  called 
domestic  republicanism.  Whether  or  not  it  is  best 
for  kingdoms,  in  families  the  only  safe  form  of  govern- 
ment is  autocracy. 

And  the  autocrat  should  decidedly  be  the  lady,  the 
mistress.  The  master,  be  he  father,  husband,  or  bro- 
ther, has  quite  enough  to  do  without  doors.  He  is  the 
bread-winner;  the  woman,  the  bread-keeper,  server, 
and  expender.  Nature  as  well  as  custom  has — save 
m  very  exceptional  cases — instituted  this  habit  of  life, 
and  any  alteration  of  it,  making  mamma  attend  the 
law-courts  and  Exchange,  or  drive  about  on  a  series 
of  medical  visits,  while  papa  stays  at  home  to  cook  the 
dinner  and  nurse  the  babies,  would  assuredly  be  very 


138  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

bad,  if  not  for  himself,  for  the  dinner  and  the 
babies. 

No.  We  of  the  "  softer  "  sex,  though  not  by  any 
means  really  so  soft  as  we  are  complimented  and 
coaxed  into  appearing,  have  no  call,  and,  mostly,  no 
desire  to  force  ourselves  into  the  province  of  men. 
We  feel  that  we  are  not  fitted  for  it.  Female  doctors 
— though  all  honour  be  to  those  heroic,  self-sacrificing 
women,  who  are  capable  of  undertaking  such  a  pro- 
fession— female  missionaries,  travellers,  and  life-long 
devotees  to  science,  art,  or  philanthropy,  are  and 
always  will  be  rare  and  peculiar  cases,  not  to  be  judged 
by  ordinary  rules.  The  average  number  of  us  are  con- 
tent to  leave  to  men  their  own  proper  place :  but 
none  the  less  resolutely  ought  we  to  keep  our  own — 
one  of  the  first  "  rights  "  of  which  is,  the  supreme  rule 
in  all  domestic  concerns. 

A  man  has  no  business  to  meddle  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  house.  No  business,  except  through  hard 
necessity,  or  the  saddest  incompetency  on  the  part  of 
others,  to  poke  over  the  weekly  bills,  and  insist  on 
knowing  what  candles  are  per  pound,  whether  the 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  139 

washing  is  done  at  home  or  abroad,  and  what  he  is 
going  to  have  every  day  for  dinner.  He  who  volun- 
tarily and  habitually  interferes  in  these  things  must  be 
a  rather  small-minded  gentleman,  uncommonly  incon- 
venient to  his  family  and  servants.  Perhaps  to  more 
than  they :  since  a  man  who  is  always  "  muddling 
about "  at  home  is  rarely  a  great  acquisition  to  the 
world  outside. 

I  once  heard  a  married  lady  say,  with  great  glee 

and  satisfaction  :  "  Oh,  Mr. saves  me  all  trouble 

in  housekeeping ;  he  orders  dinner,  and  goes  to  the 
butcher's  to  choose  it,  too;  pays  all  the  bills,  and 
keeps  the  weekly  accounts  :  he  never  wants  me  to  do 
anything."  Thought  I  privately,  "My  dear,  if  I 
were  you  I  should  be  very  much  ashamed  both  of 
myself  and  Mr. ." 

When  a  house  boasts  both  master  and  mistress, 
each  should  leave  to  the  other  the  appointed  work, 
and  both  qualify  themselves  rightly  to  fulfil  the 
same,  abstaining  as  much  as  possible  from  mutual 
interference.  A  man  who  can  trust  his  wife  or  his 
housekeeper  should  no  more  meddle  with  her  home 


140  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

concerns  than  she  should  pester  him  with  questions 
about  his  business.  Nc  doubt,  countless  occasions 
•will  arise  when  he  will  be* thankful  and  glad  to  take 
counsel  with  her  in  worldly  cares;  while  she  may 
have  to  remember  all  her  life  long,  and  never  think 
of  without  a  gush  of  gratitude  and  love,  some  season 
of  sickness  or  affliction,  when  he  filled  his  own  place 
and  hers  too,  ashamed  of  no  womanish  task,  and 
neither  irritated  nor  humiliated  by  ever  such  mean 
household  cares. 

A  lady  of  my  acquaintance  gives  it  as  her  sine  qud 
non  of  domestic  felicity,  that  the  "  men  of  the  family" 
should  always  be  absent  at  least  six  hours  in  the  day. 
And  truly  a  mistress  of  a  family,  however  strong  her 
affection  for  the  male  members  of  it,  cannot  but  ac- 
knowledge that  this  is  a  great  boon.  A  house  where 
"  papa"  or  the  "  boys"  are  always  "  pottering  about," 
popping  in  and  out  at  all  hours,  everlastingly  wanting 
something,  or  finding  fault  with  something  else,  is  a 
considerable  trial  to  even  feminine  patience.  And  I 
beg  to  ask  my  sex  generally — in  confidence,  of  course 
— if  it  is  not  the  greatest  comfort  possible  when,  the 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  141 

masculine  half  of  the  family  being  cleared  out  for  the 
day,  the  house  settles  down  into  regular  work  and 
orderly  quietness  until  evening  ? 

Also,  it  is  good  for  them,  as  well  as  for  us,  to  have 
all  the  inevitable  petty  domestic  "  bothers"  got  over 
in  their  absence  ;  to  effect  which  ought  to  be  one  of 
the  principal  aims  of  the  mistress  of  a  family.  Let 
them,  if  possible,  return  to  a  quiet  smiling  home, 
with  all  its  small  annoyances  brushed  away  like  the 
dust  and  cinders  from  the  grate — which,  en  passant,  is 
one  of  the  first  requisites  to  make  a  fireside  look  com- 
fortable. It  might  be  as  well,  too,  if  the  master  him- 
self could  contrive  to  leave  the  worldly  mud  of  the 
day  at  the  scraper  outside  his  door ;  however,  as  these 
chapters  do  not  presume  to  lecture  the  lords  of  cre- 
ation, I  have  nothing  more  to  say  on  that  score. 

But  she  who,  the  minute  an  unfortunate  man  comes 
home,  fastens  upon  him  with  a  long  tale  of  domestic 
grievances,  real  or  imagined — how  the  butcher  will 
never  bring  the  meat  in  time,  and  the  baker  keeps  a 
false  account  of  loaves — how  she  is  sure  cook  is  given 
to  drink,  and  that  Mary's  "  cousin"  had  his  dinner 


142  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

off  "  our"  mutton  yesterday ; — why,  such  a  lady  de- 
serves all  she  gets :  cold  looks,  sharp  speeches,  hasty 
plunges  into  the  convenient  newspaper;  perhaps  an 
angry  cigar — a  walk  with  no  invitation  for  her  com- 
pany— or  the  club.  Poor  little  woman  !  sitting  cry- 
ing over  her  lonely  fire,  not  owning  that  she  is  wrong, 
but  only  that  she  is  very  unhappy,  and  very  much 
ill-used,  might  one  recommend  to  her  notice  one 
golden  rule  ? — "  Never  pester  a  man  with  things  that 
he  cannot  remedy  and  does  not  understand."  Also, 
for  her  own  benefit  as  well  as  his,  a  harmless  rhyme, 
true  enough  of  minor  vexations,  whatever  it  may 
be  of  the  greater  griefs  it  so  philosophically  disposes 
of:— 

"  For  every  evil  under  the  sun 
There  is  a  remedy — or  there's  none  : 
If  there  is  one,  try  and  find  it; 
If  there  isn't,  never  mind  it." 

And  when  he  comes  in  again,  honest  man !  perhaps 
a  little  repentant,  too,  there  is  but  one  course  of 
conduct  which  I  recommend  to  all  sensible  women, 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  143 

viz.  to  put  her  arms  round  his  neck,  and — hold  her 
tongue. 

But  the  house-mother  has  her  troubles ;  ay,  be  she 
ever  so  gifted  with  that  blessed  quality  of  taking 
them  lightly  and  cheerfully ;  weighing  them  at  their 
just  value  and  no  more;  never  tormenting  herself 
and  everybody  else  by  that  peculiarity  of  selfish  and 
narrow  minds,  which  makes  the  breaking  of  a  plate 
as  terrible  a  calamity  as  the  crash  of  an  empire.  No 
one  can  hold  the  reins  of  family  government  for  ever 
so  brief  a  time,  without  feeling  what  a  difficult  posi- 
tion it  is :  how  great  its  daily  need  of  self-control,  as 
the  very  first  means  of  controlling  others ;  of  inces- 
sant individual  activity,  and  a  personal  carrying  out 
of  all  regulations  instituted  for  the  ordering  of  the 
establishment,  which,  unless  faithfully  observed  by 
the  mistress — the  eye  and  heart  of  the  house — are  no 
more  than  a  dead  letter  to  the  rest  of  the  establish 
ment. 

No  doubt  this  entails  considerable  self-sacrifice.  It 
is  not  pleasant  for  lazy  ladies  to  get  breakfast  over  at 
that  regular  early  hour,  which  alone  sets  a  household 


144  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

fairly  a-going  for  the  day:  nor  for  unarithmetical 
ladies,  who  have  always  reckoned  their  accounts  by 
sixpences,  to  put  down  each  item,  and  persevere  in 
balancing  periodically  receipts  and  expenditures :  nor 
for  weakly,  nervous,  self-engrossed  ladies,  to  rouse 
themselves  sufficiently  to  put  their  house  in  order, 
and  keep  it  so ;  not  by  occasional  spasmodic  "  setting 
to  rights,"  but  by  a  general  methodical  overlooking 
of  all  that  is  going  on  therein.  Yet,  unless  all  this  is 
done,  it  is  in  vain  to  insist  on  early  rising,  or  grumble 
about  waste,  or  lecture  upon  neatness,  cleanliness,  and 
order.  The  servants  get  to  learn  that  "missis  is 
never  in  time ;"  and  laugh  at  her  complaints  of  their 
unpunctuality.  They  see  no  use  in  good  manage- 
ment, or  avoidance  of  waste ; — "  Missis  never  knows 
about  anything.  She  may  lecture  till  she  is  weary 
about  neatness  and  cleanliness; — "Just  put  your 
head  into  her  room  and  see  I"  For  all  moral  quali- 
ties, good  temper,  truth,  kindliness,  and  above  all, 
conscientiousness,  if  these  are  deficient  in  the  mistress, 
it  is  idle  to  expect  them  from  servants,  or  children,  or 
any  members  of  the  family  circle. 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  145 

Yet  this  fact,  so  trite,  that  readers  may  smile  at  its 
being  urged  at  all,  is  the  last  to  be  generally  acted 
upon.  Mistresses  blame  all  persons  about  them,  and 
Providence  above  them ; — for  does  it  not  often  virtu- 
ally mean  that  ?  every  thing  and  every  body  except 
themselves.  They  will  not  see,  that  until  a  woman 
has  done  all  that  is  in  her  power  to  do,  striving  with 
antagonistic  circumstances,  great  and  small,  and 
chiefly  with  her  own  self,  her  errors  of  character,  and 
weaknesses  of  temperament — until  then  she  has  no 
right  to  begin  blaming  anybody.  It  is  vain  to 
attempt  showing  them,  what  is  plain  enough  to  any 
unbiassed  student  of  life  in  the  abstract — and  this 
ought  to  strike  solemnly  upon  the  mind  of  every 
woman  who  feels  that  where  much  is  given  much  is 
required — that,  however  fatally  the  conduct  of  the 
master  may  affect  the  external  fortunes  of  a  family, 
there  are  very  few  families  whose  internal  misma- 
nagement and  domestic  unhappiness  are  not  mainly 
the  fault  of  the  mistress. 

The  house-mother!  where  could  she  find  a  nobler 

title,  a  more  sacred  charge?     All  these  souls,  given 

7 


l  /J.6  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

into  her  hand  to  be  cared  for,  both  in  great  things 
and  small — if  anything  can  be  called  small  on  which 
rests  the  comfort  of  a  family ;  and  that  to  a  degree 
which  can  never  be  too  much  appreciated.  For 
instance,  good  temper  is  with  many  people  dependent 
upon  good  health ;  good  health  upon  good  digestion ; 
good  digestion  upon  wholesome,  well-prepared  food, 
eaten  in  peace  and  pleasantness.  Ill-cooked,  untidy 
meals,  are  as  great  a  cause  of  bad  temper  as  many  a 
moral  wrong;  and  a  person  of  sensitive  physique 
may  be  nursed  into  settled  hypochondria  by  living  in 
close  rooms,  where  the  sweet  fresh  air  and  sunshine 
are  determinedly  shut  out,  and  the  foul  air  as  deter- 
minedly shut  in.  While  those  nervous,  irritable  tem- 
peraments, which,  either  from  the  slow  deterioration 
of  our  race,  or  our  modern  error  of  cultivating  the 
mind  at  the  expense  of  the  body,  are  getting  so 
common  now-a-days,  are  often  diiven  almost  into 
madness  by  the  non-observance  of  those  ordinary 
sanitary  rules,  ignorance  or  neglect  of  which,  bad 
enough  in  anybody,  is  in  the  mistress  of  a  family 
scarcely  less  than  a  crime. 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  147 

Yet  most  of  these  short-comings  in  women,  on 
whom  this  responsibility  has  fallen,  are  by  no  means 
intentional.  A  girl  marries  early,  thinking  only  how 
pleasant  it  is  to  have  a  house  of  one's  own,  and  nevei 
once  how  difficult  it  is  to  mauage  it:  perhaps  she 
makes  a  pride,  and  her  young  husband  a  joke,  of  her 
charming  ignorance  in  common  things — a  la  David 
and  Dora  Copperfield — pretty  enough  while  it  lasts. 
But  only  picture  these  poor  little  silly  Doras  living, 
instead  of,  happily,  dying!  Drifting  on  to  middle 
age — helpless,  burdensome  wives — lazy,  feeble,  many- 
childed  mothers ;  meaning  well  enough,  but  incapable 
of  acting  upon  their  good  intentions ;  either  sinking 
into  a  hopeless  indifference,  which  is  not  content,  or 
wearing  themselves  out  with  weak  complainings, 
which  never  result  in  any  amendment.  Poor  dear 
women !  we  may  pity  and  pardon,  acknowledging 
their  many  gentle  and  estimable  qualities ;  but  all  the 
passive  sweetness  in  the  world  will  not  make  up  for 
active  goodness;  and  there  is  many  a  "most  amiable 
woman,"  who,  whatever  she  mighi  have  been  in  an 
inferior  position,  when  unhappily  she  is  mistress  of  a 


1 48  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

family,  by  her  over-kindness,  lazy  laxity,  and  general 
laissez-faire,  does  as  much  harm  as  the  greatest  shrew 
who  ever  embittered  the  peace  of  a  household. 

Power,  of  whatsoever  kind  and  degree,  so  that  it  is 
j  ust  and  lawful,  is  a  glorious  thing  to  have,  a  noble 
thing  to  use.  But  what  shall  be  said  for  the  woman 
who  has  had  it  and  thrown  it  away,  or  retained  it 
only  to  misuse  it  ?  "Woe  betide  both  her  and  all  con- 
nected with  her !  for  she  has  ceased  to  injure  herself 
alone.  Every  life  that  was  given  her  in  charge  for 
health  of  body  and  mind,  peace,  comfort,  and  enjoy- 
ment, will  assuredly  one  day  rise  up  in  judgment 
against  her.  We  can  imagine  such  an  one,  suddenly 
waking  up  to  the  consciousness  of  all  she  has  done 
and  left  undone — what  those  belonging  to  her  are, 
and  what  she  might,  under  God,  have  made  them — 
crying  out  in  her  agony,  "  Would  that  I  had  never 
been  born !" 

At  present,  the  happiest  thing  for  her — if  there  can 
be  any  happiness  in  a  self-deception—is,  that  she 
really  is  unaware  of  her  own"  position — that  most  hu- 
miliating position  of  a  woman  who  is  not  mistress  in 


The  Mistress  of  a  Family.  149 

her  own  family;  whose  servants  disobey  or  despise 
her,  whose  children  rule  her,  whose  husband  snubs 
her  or  neglects  her,  whose  friends  and  neighbours 
criticise,  compassionate,  or  laugh  at  her.  "Who, 
though  anything  but  a  bad  woman,  will  slip  through 
existence  without  dignity,  effecting  little  or  no  real 
good :  at  best  only  patiently  borne  with  and  kindly 
treated  while  she  lives,  and  her  place  filled  up,  some 
few  regretting  awhile,  but  none  really  missing  her,  as 
soon  as  ever  she  dies. 

"What  a  contrast  to  that  portrait — standing  out  as 
true  a  photograph  of  nature  in  this  our  modern  day, 
as  it  did  in  those  ancient  days,  under  the  glowing  sun 
of  the  East,  "  the  words  of  King  Lemuel,"  that  "  his 
mother  taught  him." 

"  Who  can  find  a  virtuous  woman  ?  for  her  price  is  far  above 
rubies. 

The  heart  of  her  husband  doth  safely  trust  hi  her,  so  that  she 
ehall  have  no  need  of  spoil. 

She  will  do  him  good  and  not  evil  all  the  days  of  her  life. 
***** 

She  girdeth  her  loins  with  strength,  and  strengtheneth  her 
arms. 


1 50  The  Mistress  of  a  Family. 

She  Jayeth  her  hands  to  the  spindle,  and  her  hands  1  old  the 
distaff 

She  stretcheth  out  her  hand  to  the  poor ;  yea,  she  reacheth 
forth  her  hands  to  the  needy. 

***** 

Her  husband  is  known  in  the  gates,  when  he  sitteth  among 
the  elders  of  the  land. 

***** 

Strength  and  honour  are  her  clothing;  and  she  shall  rejoice  in 
time  to  come. 

She  openeth  her  mouth  with  wisdom ;  and  in  her  tongue  is 
the  law  of  kindness. 

She  looketh  well  to  the  ways  of  her  household,  and  eateth 
not  the  bread  of  idleness. 

Her  children  arise  up,  and  call  her  blessed ;  her  husband  also, 
and  he  praiseth  her. 

Many  daughters  have  done  virtuously,  but  thou  excellest 
them  all. 

Favour  is  deceitful,  and  beauty  is  vain;  but  a  woman  that 
feareth  the  Lord,  she  shall  be  praised. 

Give  her  of  the  fruit  of  her  hands ;  and  let  her  own  works 
praise  her  in  the  gates.' 


CHAPTER  VII. 

FEMALE  FRIENDSHIPS. 

'And  what  is  Friendship  but  a  name, 

A  charm  that  lulls  to  sleep, 
A  shade  that  follows  wealth  and  fame, 
And  leaves  the  wretch  to  weep  ?" 

THIS  remark,  expressed  too  tersely  and  intelligibly  to 
be  considered  "  poetry"  now-a-days,  must  apply  to  the 
nobler  sex.  Few  observant  persons  will  allege 
against  ours,  that  even  in  its  lowest  form  our  friend- 
ship is  deceitful.  Fickle  it  may  be,  weak,  exagge- 
rated, sentimental — the  mere  lath-and-plaster  imitation 
of  a  palace  great  enough  for  a  demigod  to  dwell  in — 
but  it  is  rarely  false,  parasitical,  or  diplomatic.  The 
countless  secondary  motives  which  many  men  are 
mean  enough  to  have — nay,  to  own — are  all  but 
impossible  to  us ;  impossible  from  the  very  faults  of 
our  nature — our  frivolity,  irrationality,  and  incapacity 


152  Female  Friendships. 

to  seize  on  more  than  one  idea  at  the  same  time.  In 
truth,  a  sad  proportion  of  us  are  too  empty-headed  to 
be  double-minded,  too  shallow  to  be  insincere.  Nay, 
even  the  worst  of  us  being  more  direct  and  simple  of 
character  than  men  are,  our  lightest  friendship — the 
merest  passing  liking  that  we  decorate  with  that  name 
— is,  while  it  lasts,  more  true  than  the  generality  of 
the  so-called  "  friendships"  of  mankind. 

But — and  this  "but"  will,  I  am  aware,  raise  a 
whole  nest  of  hornets — from  our  very  peculiarities  of 
temperament,  women's  friendships  are  rarely  or  never 
so  firm,  so  just,  or  so  enduring,  as  those  of  men — 
when  you  can  find  them.  Damon  and  Pythias, 
Orestes  and  Pylades,  Brutus  and  Cassius — last  and 
loveliest,  David  and  Jonathan,  are  pictures  unmatched 
by  any  from  our  sex,  down  even  to  the  far-famed 
ladies  of  Llangollen.  When  such  a  bond  really  does 
exist,  from  its  exception  to  general  masculine  idiosyn- 
crasies— especially  the  enormous  absorption  in  and 
devotion  to  Number  One — from  its  total  absence  of 
sentimentality,  its  undemonstrativeness,  depth,  and 
power,  a  friendship  between  two  men  is  a  higher 


Female  Friendships.  153 

thing  than  between  any  two  women — nay,  one  of  the 
highest  and  noblest  sights  in  the  whole  world.  Pre- 
cisely as,  were  comparisons  not  as  foolish  as  they  are 
odious,  a  truly  good  man,  from  the  larger  capacities 
of  male  nature  both  for  virtue  and  vice,  is,  in  one 
sense,  more  good  than  any  good  woman.  Bat  this  ques- 
tion I  leave  to  controversialists,  who  enjoy  breaking 
their  own  heads,  or  one  another's,  over  a  bone  of  con- 
tention which  is  usually  not  worth  picking  after  all. 

Yet,  though  dissenting  from  much  of  the  romance 
talked  about  female  friendships,  believing  that  two- 
thirds  of  them  spring  from  mere  idleness,  or  from 
that  besoin  d'aimer  which,  for  want  of  natural  domes- 
tic ties,  makes  this  one  a  temporary  substitute,  Heaven 
forbid  I  should  so  malign  my  sex  as  to  say  they  are 
incapable  of  an  emotion  which,  in  its  right  form  and 
place,  constitutes  the  strength,  help,  and  sweetness  of 
many,  many  lives ;  and  the  more  so  because  it  is  one 
of  the  first  sweetnesses  we  know. 

Probably  there  are  few  women  who  have  not  had 
some  first  friendship,  as  delicio'is  and  almost  as  pas- 
sionate as  first  love.  It  may  not  last — it  seldom  does ; 

7* 


1^4  Female  Friendships. 

but  at  tlie  time  it  is  one  of  the  purest,  most  self- 
forgetful  and  self-denying  attachments  that  the  human 
heart  can  experience:  with  many,  the  nearest  ap- 
proximation to  that  feeling  called  love — I  mean  love 
in  its  highest  form,  apart  from  all  selfishnesses  and 
sensuousnesses — which  in  all  their  after-life  they  will 
ever  know.  This  girlish  friendship,  however  fleeting 
in  its  character,  and  romantic,  even  silly,  in  its  mani- 
festations, let  us  take  heed  how  we  make  light  of, 
lest  we  be  mocking  at  things  more  sacred  than  we  are 
aware. 

And  yet,  it  is  not  the  real  thing — not  friendship, 
but  rather  a  kind  of  foreshadowing  of  love ;  as  jealous, 
as  exacting,  as  unreasoning — as  wildly  happy  and 
supremely  miserable ;  ridiculously  so  to  a  looker-on, 
but  to  the  parties  concerned,  as  vivid  and  sincere  as 
any  after-passion  into  which  the  girl  may  fall ;  for  the 
time  being,  perhaps  long  after,  colouring  all  her 
world.  Yet  it  is  but  a  dream,  to  melt  away  like  a 
dream  when  love  appears ;  or  if  it  then  wishes  to 
keep  up  its  vitality  at  all,  it  must  change  its  charac- 
ter, temper  its  exactions,  resign  its  rights :  in  short, 


Female  Friendships.  155 

be  buried  and  come  to  life  again  in  a  totally  different 
form.  Afterwards,  should  Laura  and  Matilda,  with  a 
house  to  mind  and  a  husband  to  fuss  over,  find  them- 
selves actually  kissing  the  babies  instead  of  one 
another — and  managing  to  exist  for  a  year  without 
meeting,  or  a  month  without  letter-writing,  yet  feel 
life  no  blank,  and  affection  a  reality  still — then  their 
attachment  has  taken  its  true  shape  as  friendship, 
shown  itself  capable  of  friendship's  distinguishing  fea- 
ture— namely,  tenderness  without  appropriation ;  and 
the  women,  young  or  old,  will  love  one  another  faith- 
fully to  the  end  of  their  lives. 

Perhaps  this,  which  is  the  test  of  the  sentiment, 
explains  why  we  thus  seldom  attain  to  it,  in  its  high- 
est phase,  because  nature  has  made  us  in  all  our  feel- 
ings so  intensely  personal.  "We  have  instincts,  pas- 
sions, domestic  affections,  but  friendship  is,  strictly 
speaking,  none  of  the  three.  It  is — to  borrow  the 
phrase  so  misused  by  that  arch  tra-moralist,  that  high- 
priest  of  intellectual  self- worship,  Goethe — an  elective 
affinity,  based  upon  the  spiritual  consanguinity,  which, 
though  frequently  co-existent  with,  is  different  from 


Female  Friendships. 


any  tie  of  instinct  or  blood-relationship.  Therefore, 
neither  the  sanctities  nor  weaknesses  of  these  rightly 
appertain  to  it;  its  duties,  immunities,  benefits  and 
pains,  belong  to  a  distinct  sphere,  of  which  the  vital 
atmosphere  is  perfect  liberty.  A  bond,  not  of  nature 
but  of  choice,  it  should  exist  and  be  maintained  calm, 
free,  and  clear,  having  neither  rights  nor  jealousies  ; 
at  once  the  firmest  and  most  independent  of  all 
human  ties. 

"  Enough,"  said  Easselas  to  Imlac;  "you  convince 
me  that*  no  man  can  ever  be  a  poet."  And  truly, 
reviewing  friendship  in  its  purest  essence,  one  is  prone 
to  think  that,  in  this  imperfect  world  of  ours,  no  man 
—certainly  no  woman  —  ever  can  be  a  friend.  And 
yet  we  all  own  some  dozens;  from  Mrs.  Granville 
Jones,  who  invites  "a  few  friends"  —  say  two  hundred 
—to  pass  with  her  a  "social  evening"  —  to  the  poor 
costermonger,  who  shouts  after  the  little  pugilistic 
sweep  the  familiar  tragico-comic  saying:  "Hit  him 
hard  ;  he's  got  no  friends  !"  And  who  that  is  not  an 
utter  misanthrope  would  refuse  to  those  of  his  or  her 
acquaintance  that  persist  in  claiming  it,  the  kindly 


Female  Friendships.  157 

;  and  the  pleasant  social  charities  which  belong 

thereto  ? 

% 
"  Love  is  sweet, 

Given  or  returned ;" 

and  so  is  friendship ;  when,  be  it  ever  so  infinitesimal 
in  quantity,  its  quality  is  unadulterated,  springing, 
as,  I  repeat,  women's  friendship  almost  always  does 
spring,  out  of  that  one-idea'd  impulsiveness,  often 
wrong-headed,  but  rarely  evil-hearted,  which  makes 
us  at  once  so  charming  and  so  troublesome,  and 
which,  I  fear,  never  will  be  got  out  of  us  till  we  cease 
to  be  women,  and  become  what  men  sometimes  call 
us — and  they  well  know  they  give  us  but  too  much 
need  to  be — angels. 

Yes,  with  all  our  folly,  we  are  not  false :  not  even 
when  Lavinia  Smith  adores  with  all  her  innocent  soul 
the  condescending  Celestina  Jones,  though  meeting 
twenty  years  after  as  fat  Mrs.  Brown  and  vulgar  Mrs. 
Green,  they  may  with  difficulty  remember  one  an- 
other's Christian  names :  not  when  Bessy  Thompson, 
blessed  with  three  particularly  nice  brothers,  owns 


158  Female  Friendships. 

likewise  tliree  times  three  "dearest"  friends,  who 
honestly  persuade  themselves  and  her  that  they  come 
only  to  see  dear  Bes?y ;  nevertheless,  the  fondness  is 
real  enough  to  outlast  many  bothers  caused  by  said 
brothers,  or  even  a  cantankerous  sister-in-law  to  end 
with.  Nay,  when  Miss  Hopkins,  that  middle-aged 
and  strong-minded  "young  lady"  of  blighted  affec- 
tions, and  Mrs.  Jenkins,  that  woman  of  sublime 
aspirations,  who  has  unluckily  "  mated  with  a  clown." 
coalesce  against  the  opposite  sex,  fall  into  one  an- 
other's arms  and  vow  eternal  friendship — for  a  year ; 
after  which,  for  five  more,  they  make  all  their 
acquaintances  uncomfortable  by  their  eternal  enmity 
— even  in  this  lamentable  phase  of  the  sentiment,  it  is 
more  respectable  than  the  time-serving,  place-hunt- 
ing, dinner-seeking  devotion  which  Messrs.  Tape  and 
Tadpole  choose  to  denominate  "  friendship." 

Men  may  laugh  at  us,  and  we  deserve  it :  we  are 
often  egregious  fools,  but  we  are  honest  fools;  and 
our  folly,  at  least  in  this  matter,  usually  ends  where 
theirs  begins — with  middle  life,  or  marriage. 

It  is  the  unmarried,  the  solitary,  who  are  most 


Female  Friendships. 


prone  to  that  sort  of  "sentimental"  friendship  with 
their  own  or  the  opposite  sex,  which,  though  often 
most  noble,  unselfish,  and  true,  is  in  some  forms 
ludicrous,  in  others  dangerous.  For  two  women, 
past  earliest  girlhood,  to  be  completely  absorbed  in 
one  another,  and  make  public  demonstration  of  the 
fact,  by  caresses  or  quarrels,  is  so  repugnant  to  com- 
mon sense,  that  where  it  ceases  to  be  silly  it  becomes 
actually  wrong.  But  to  see  two  women,  whom 
Providence  has  denied  nearer  ties,  by  a  wise  sub- 
stitution making  the  best  of  fate,  loving,  sustaining, 
and  comforting  one  another,  with  a  tenderness  often 
closer  than  that  of  sisters,  because  it  has  all  the 
novelty  of  election  which  belongs  to  the  conjugal  tie 
itself  —  this,  I  say,  is  an  honourable  and  lovely  sight. 

ISTot  less  so  the  friendship  —  rare,  I  grant,  yet  quite 
possible  —  which  subsists  between  a  man  and  woman 
whom  circumstances,  or  their  own  idiosyncrasies, 
preclude  from  the  slightest  chance  of  ever  "falling  in 
love."  That  such  friendships  can  exist,  especially 
between  persons  of  a  certain  temperament  and  order 
pf  naind.  *ind  remain  for  a  lifetime,  utterly  pure,  inter 


160  Female  Friendships. 

(l-riiig  with  no  rights,  and  transgressing  no  law  of 
morals  or  society,  most  people's  observation  of  life 
will  testify ;  and  he  must  take  a  very  low  view  of 
human  nature  who  dares  to  say  that  these  attach- 
ments, satirically  termed  "  Platonic,"  are  impossible. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  common  sense  must  allow  that 
they  are  rare  to  find,  and  not  the  happiest  always, 
when  found;  because  in  some  degree  they  are  con- 
trary to  nature.  Nature's  law.  undoubtedly  is,  that 
our  nearest  ties  should  be  those  of  blood — father  or 
brother,  sister  or  mother — until  comes  the  closer  one 
of  marriage ;  and  it  is  always,  if  not  wrong,  rather 
pitiful,  when  any  extraneous  bond  comes  in  between 
to  forestall  the  entire  affection  that  a  young  man 
ought  to  bring  to  his  future  wife,  a  young  woman  to 
her  husband.  I  say  ought — God  knows  if  they  ever 
do  !  But,  however  fate,  or  folly,  or  wickedness  may 
interfere  to  prevent  it,  not  the  less  true  is  the  un- 
doubted fact,  that  happy  above  all  must  be  that 
marriage  where  neither  husband  nor  wife  ever  had  a 
friend  so  dear  as  one  another. 

After  marriage,  for  either  party  to  have  or  to  desiro 


Female  Friendships.  <      161 

• 

a  dearer  or  closer  friend  than  the  other,  is  a  state  of 
things  so  inconceivably  deplorable — the  more  erring, 
the  more  deplorable —  that  it  will  not  bear  discussion. 
Such  cases  there  are ;  but  He  who  in  the  mystery  of 
marriage  prefigured  a  greater  mystery  still,  alone  can 
judge  them,  for  He  only  knows  their  miseries,  their 
temptations,  and  their  wrongs. 

While  allowing  that  a  treaty  of  friendship,  "  pure 
and  simple,"  can  exist  between  a  man  and  woman — 
under  peculiar  circumstances,  even  between  a  young 
man  and  a  young  woman — it  must  also  be  allowed 
that  the  experiment  is  difficult,  often  dangerous;  so 
dangerous  that  the  matter-of-fact  half  of  the  world 
will  not  believe  in  it  at  all.  Parents  and  guardians 
very  naturally  oBject  to  a  gentleman's  "hanging  up 
his  hat"  in  their  houses,  or  taking  sentimental  twi- 
light rambles  with  their  fair  young  daughters.  They 
insist,  and  justly,  that  he  ought  to 

"  Come  with  a  good  will,  or  come  not  at  all  j" 
namely,  as  a  mere  acquaintance,  a  pleasant  friend  of 


1 62  Female  Friendships. 

the  family — the  whole  family,  or  as  a  declared  suitor. 
And  though  this  may  fall  rather  hard  upon  the 
voung  man,  who  has  just  a  hundred  a-year,  and,  with 
every  disposition  towards  flirting,  a  strong  horror  of 
matrimony — still  it  is  wisest  and  best.  It  may  save 
both  parties  from  frittering  away,  in  a  score  of  false 
sentimental  likings,  the  love  that  ought  to  belong  but 
to  one ;  or,  still  worse,  from  committing  or  suffering 
what,  beginning  blamelessly  on, either  side,  frequently 
ends  in  incurable  pain,  irremediable  wrong. 

Therefore  it  is,  generally  speaking,  those  further 
on  in  life,  with  whom  the  love-phase  is  past,  or  for 
whom  it  never  existed,  who  may  best  use  the  right, 
which  every  pure  and  independent  heart  undoubt- 
edly has,  of  saying:  "I  take  this  man  or  woman  for 
my  friend :  only  a  friend — never  either  more  or  less 
— whom  as  such  I  mean  to  keep  to  the  end  of  my 
days."  And  if  more  of  these,  who  really  know  what 
friendship  is,  would  have  the  moral  courage  to  assert 
its  dignity  against  the  sneers  of  society,  which  is 
loath  to  believe  in  anything  higher  and  purer  than 
itself,  I  think  it  would  be  all  the  better  for  the  world 


Female  Friendships.  163 

Women's  friendships  with  one  anothei  are  of 
course  free  from  all  these  perils,  and  yet  they  have 
their  own.  The  wonderful  law  of  sex — which  exists 
spiritually  as  well  as  materially,  and  often  indepen- 
dent of  matter  altogether ;  since  we  see  many  a  man 
who  is  much  more  of  a  woman,  and  many  a  woman 
who  would  certainly  be  the  "better  half"  of  any 
man  who  cared  for  her — this  law  can  rarely  be  with- 
stood with  impunity.  In  most  friends  whose  attach- 
ment is  specially  deep  and  lasting,  we  can  usually 
trace  a  difference — of  strong  or  weak,  gay  or  grave, 
brilliant  or  solid — answering  in  some  measure  to  the 
difference  of  sex.  Otherwise,  a  close,  all-engrossing 
friendship  between  two  women  would  seldom  last 
long;  or  if  it  did,  by  their  mutual  feminine  weak- 
nesses acting  and  reacting  upon  one  another,  would 
most  likely  narrow  the  sympathies  and  deteriorate 
the  character  of  both. 

Herein  lies  the  distinction — marked  and  inalien- 
able— between  friendship  and  love.  The  latter  being 
a  natural  necessity,  requires  but  the  one,  whom  it 
absorbs  and  assimilates  till  the  two  diverse,  and  often 


164  Female  Friendships. 

opposite  characters,  become  a  safe  unity — according 
to  divine  ordinance,  "  one  flesh."  But  friendship,  tc 
be  friendship  at  all,  must  have  an  independent  self 
existence,  capable  of  gradations  and  varieties;  for 
though  we  can  have  but  one  dearest  friend,  it  would 
argue  small  power  of  either  appreciating  or  loving  to 
have  only  one  friend. 

On  the  other  hand,  "  the  hare  with  many  friends7' 
has  passed  into  a  proverb.  Such,  a  condition  is  mani- 
festly impossible.  The  gentleman  who,  in  answer  to 
his  servant's  request  to  be  allowed  to  go  and  "  see  a 
friend,"  cries : — 

"  Fetch  me  my  coat,  John !     Though  the  night  be  raw, 
I'll  see  him  too — the  first  I  ever  saw :" 

this  cynic,  poor  wretch !  speaks  wiser  than  he  is  aware 
of.  One  simple  fact  explains  and  limits  the  whole 
question — that  those  only  can  find  true  friends  who 
have  in  themselves  the  will  and  capacity  to  be  such. 

A.  friend.  Not  perhaps  until  later  life,  until  the 
follies,  passions,  and  selfishnesses  of  youth  have  died 


Female  Friendships.  165 

out,  do  we — I  mean  especially  we  women — recognise 
the  inestimable  blessing,  the  responsibility  awful  as 
sweet,  of  possessing  or  of  being  a  friend.  And  though, 
not  willing  to  run  counter  to  the  world's  kindly  cus- 
tom, we  may  give  that  solemn  title  to  many  who  do 
not  exactly  own  it ;  though  year  by  year  the  fierce 
experience  of  life,  through  death,  circumstance,  or 
change,  narrows  the  circle  of  those  who  do  own  it ; 
still  that  man  or  woman  must  have  been  very  unfor- 
tunate— perhaps,  as  there  can  be  no  result  without  a 
cause,  worse  than  unfortunate — who,  looking  back  on 
thirty,  forty,  or  fifty  years  of  existence,  cannot  say  from 
the  heart,  "  I  thank  God  for  my  friends." 

People  rarely  long  keep  what  they  do  not  deserve. 
If  you  find  any  who,  in  the  decline  of  life,  have  few 
"  auld  acquaintance,"  and  those  few  "  never  brought 
to  mind,"  but  in  their  stead  a  lengthy  list  of  friends 
who  are  such  no  more,  who  have  "  ill-treated"  them, 
or  with  whom  they  have  had  a  "  slight  coolness ;"  if 
they  are  always  finding  fault  with  the  friends  they 
now  have,  and  accusing  them  of  ingratitude  or  neg- 
lect ;  if  they  tell  you  these  friends1  secrets,  and  expect 


j66  Female  Friendships. 

you  in  return  to  tell  them  all  your  friends'  secrets,  and 
your  own — beware  of  these  people  !  They  may  have 
many  good  qualities ;  you  may  like  them  very  much, 
and  keep  them  as  most  pleasant  society ;  but  as  for 
resting  your  heart  upon  them,  you  might  as  well  rest 
it  upon  a  burning  rock  or  a  broken  reed. 

But  if  you  find  people  who  through  all  life's  vicis- 
situdes and  pangs  have  preserved  a  handful  of  real 
"friends" — exclusive  of  you,  for  it  takes  years  to 
judge  the  value  of  friendship  towards  ourselves — if 
on  the  whole  they  complain  little  either  of  these 
friends  or  of  the  world,  which  rarely  misuses  a  good 
man  or  woman  for  ever ;  if  they  bestow  no  extrava 
gant  devotion  on  you,  nor  expect  from  you  one  whit 
more  than  you  freely  give  ;  if  they  never,  under  any 
excuse,  however  personally  flattering,  talk  to  you 
about  a  third  party,  as  you  would  shrink  from  their 
talking  to  any  third  party  about  you — then,  be  satis- 
fied ; 

"  Those  friends  thou  hast,  and  their  adoption  tried; 
Grapple,  them  to  thy  soul  with  hooks  of  steel  I" 

Never  let  them  go ;  suffer  no  changing  tide  of  for- 


Female  Friendships.  167 

tune  to  sweep  them  from  you — no  later  friendships  tc 
usurp  their  place.  Be  very  patient  with  them  ;  bear 
their  little  faults  as  they  must  bear  yours ;  make 
allowance  for  the  countless  unintentional  slights,  neg- 
lects, or  offences,  that  we  all  in  the  whirl  of  life  must 
both  endure  and  commit  towards  those  who  form  not 
a  part,  but  an  adjunct  of  our  existence — remember- 
ing, as  I  said  before,  that  the  very  element  in  which 
true  friendship  lives,  and  out  of  which  it  cannot  li ve 
at  all,  is  perfect  liberty. 

Friendship  once  conceived  should,  like  love,  in  one 
sense  last  for  ever.  That  it  does  not ;  that  in  the 
world's  harsh  wear  and  tear  many  a  very  sincere  at- 
tachment is  slowly  obliterated,  or  both  parties  grow 
out  of  it  and  cast  it,  like  a  snake  his  last  year's  skin — 
though  that  implies  something  of  the  snake-nature,  I 
fear — are  facts  too  mournfully  common  to  be  denied. 
But  there  is  a  third  fact,  as  mournfully  uncommon, 
which  needs  to  be  remembered  likewise :  we  may  lose 
the  friend — the  friendship  we  never  can  or  ought  to 
lose.  Actively,  it  .may  exist  no  more  ;  but  passively, 
it  is  just  as  binding  as  the  first  moment  when  we 


168  Female  Friendships. 

pledged  it,  as  we  believed,  for  ever.  Its  duties,  like 
its  delights,  may  have  become  a  dead-letter ;  but  none 
of  its  claims  or  confidences  have  we  ever  afterwards 
tiie  smallest  right  to  abjure  or  to  break. 

And  here  is  one  accusation  which  I  must  sorrow- 
folly  bring  against  women,  as  being  much  more 
guilty  than  men.  "We  can  keep  a  secret — ay,  against 
all  satire,  I  protest  we  can — while  the  confider  remains 
our  friend ;  but  if  that  tie  ceases,  pop !  out  it  comes  ! 
and  in  the  bitterness  of  invective,  the  pang  of 
wounded  feeling,  or  afterwards  in  mere  thoughtless- 
ness, and  easy  forgetting  of  what  is  so  easily  healed, 
a  thousand  things  are  said  and  done  for  which 
nothing  can  ever  atone.  The  lost  friendship,  which, 
once  certain  that  it  is  past  all  revival,  ought  to  be 
buried  as  solemnly  and  silently  as  a  lost  love,  is  cast 
out  into  the  open  street  for  all  the  snarling  curs  of 
society  to  gnaw  at  and  mangle,  and  all  the  contemptu- 
ous misogynists  who  pass  by  to  point  the  finger  at — 
"  See  what  your  grand  ideals  all  come  to !" 

Good  women— dear  my  sisters !  be  our  friendships 
false  or  true,  wise  or  foolish,  living  or  dead — let  us  at 


Female  Friendships. 


least  learn  to  keep  them  sacred  !  Men  are  far  better 
than  we  in  this.  Barely  will  a  man  voluntarily  or 
thoughtlessly  betray  a  friend's  confidence,  either  at 
the  time  or  afterwards.  He  will  say,  even  to  his  own 
wife:  "I  can't  tell  you  this  —  I  have  no  right  to  tell 
you  :"  and  if  she  has  the  least  spark  of  good  feeling, 
she  will  honour  and  love  him  all  the  dearer  for  so 
saying.  More  rarely  still  will  a  ma^i  be  heard,  as 
women  constantly  are,  speaking  ill  of  some  friend 
who  a  little  while  before,  while  the  friendship  lasted, 
was  all  perfection.  What  is  necessary  to  be  said  he 
will  say,  but  not  a  syllable  more,  leaving  all  the  rest 
in  that  safe,  still  atmosphere,  where  all  good  fructifies 
and  evil  perishes  —  the  atmosphere  of  silence. 

Ay,  above  all  things,  what  women  need  to  learn  in 
their  friendships  is  the  sanctity  of  silence  —  silence  in 
outward  demonstration,  silence  under  wrong,  silence 
with  regard  to  the  outside  world,  and  often  a  delicate 
silence  between  one  another.  About  the  greatest 
virtue  a  friend  can  have,  is  to  be  able  to  hold  her 
tongue;  and  though  this,  like  all  virtues  carried  to 

extremity,  may  grow  into  a  fault,  and  do  great  harm, 

8 


170  Female  Friendships. 

still,  it  never  can  do  so  much  harm  as  that  horrible 
laxity  and  profligacy  of  speech  which  is  at  the  root 
of  half  the  quarrels,  cruelties,  and  injustices  of  the 
world. 

And  let  every  woman,  old  or  young,  in  com 
mencing  a  friendship,  be  careful  that  it  is  to  the  right 
thing  she  has  given  the  right  name.  If  so,  let  her 
enter  upon  it  thoughtfully,  earnestly,  advisedly,  as 
upon  an  engagement  made  for  life,  which  in  truth  it 
is ;  since,  whether  its  duration  be  brief  or  long,  it  is  a 
tangible  reality,  and,  as  such,  must  have  its  influence 
on  the  total  chronicle  of  existence,  wherein  no  lino 
can  ever  be  quite  blotted  out.  Let  her,  with  the 
strength  and  comfort  of  it,  prepare  to  take  the 
burden ;  determined,  whatever  the  other  may  do,  to 
fulfil  her  own  part,  and  act  up  to  her  own  duty,  abso- 
lutely and  conscientiously,  to  the  end.  For  truly, 
the  greatest  of  all  external  blessings  is  it  to  be  able  to 
lean  your  heart  against  another  heart,  faithful,  tender, 
true,  and  tried,  and  record  with  a  thankfulness  that 
years  deepen  instead  of  diminishing,  "  I  have  got  a 
<Hend!" 


CHAPTER  Yin. 

GOSSIP. 

ONE  of  the  wisest  and  best  among  our  English  ethi 
cal  writers,  the  author  of  Companions  of  my  Solitude, 
says,  Apropos  of  gossip,  that  one  half  of  the  evil- 
speaking  of  the  world  arises,  not  from  malice  prepense, 
but  from  mere  want  of  amusement.  And  I  think  we 
may  even  grant  that  in  the  other  half,  constituted 
small  of  mind  or  selfish  in  disposition,  it  is  seldom 
worse  than  the  natural  falling  back  from  large  ab- 
stract interests,  which  they  cannot  understand,  upon 
those  which  they  can — alas!  only  the  narrow,  com- 
monplace, and  personal. 

Yet  they  mean  no  harm ;  are  often  under  the  de- 
lusion that  they  both  mean  and  do  a  great  deal  of 
good,  take  a  benevolent  watch  over  their  fellow- 
creatures,  and  so  forth.  They  would  not  say  an  un- 
true word,  or  do  an  unkind  action — not  they !  The 


1 72  Gossip. 

most  barefaced  slanderer  always  tells  her  story  with 
a  good  motive,  or  thinks  she  does;  begins  with  a 
harmless  "bit  of  gossip,"  just  to  pass  the  time  away 
—  the  time  which  hangs  so  heavy  1  and  ends  by  be- 
coming the  most  arrant  and  mischievous  tale-bearer 
under  the  sun. 

Ex.  gratia — Let  me  put  on  record  the  decline  and 
fall,  voluntarily  confessed,  of  two  friends  of  mine, 
certainly  the  last  persons  likely  to  take  to  tittle-tattle ; 
being  neither  young  nor  elderly;  on  the  whole,  per- 
haps rather  "bright"  than  stupid;  having  plenty  to 
do  and  to  think  of — too  much,  indeed,  since  they 
came  on  an  enforced  holiday  out  of  that  vortex  in 
which  London  whirls  her  professional  classes  round 
and  round,  year  by  year,  till  at  last  often  nothing  but 
a  handful  of  dry  bones  is  cast  on  shore.  They  came 

to  lodge  at  the  village  of  X ,  let  me  call  it,  as 

being  an  "  unknown  quantity,"  which  the  reader 
will  vainly  attempt  to  find  out,  since  it  is  just  like 
BDme  hundred  other  villages — has  its  church  and  rec- 
tor, great  house  and  squire,  doctor  and  lawyer  (alas ! 
poor  village,  I  fear  its  two  doctors  and  two  lawyers) ; 


Gossip.  1 73 

also  its  small  select  society,  where  everybody  knows 
everybody — that  is,  their  affairs  :  for  themselves,  one 
half  the  parish  resolutely  declines  "knowing"  the 
other  half — sometimes  pretermittently,  sometimes  per- 
manently. Of  course,  not  a  single  soul  would  have 
ventured  to  know  Bob1  and  Maria — as  I  shall  call  the 
strangers — had  they  not  brought  an  introduction  to 
one  family,  under  the  shelter  of  whose  respectability 
they  meekly  placed  their  own.  A  very  worthy 
family  it  was,  which  showed  them  all  hospitality, 
asked  them  to  tea  continually,  and  there,  in  the 
shadow  of  the  pleasant  drawing-room,  which  over- 
looked the  street,  indoctrinated  them  into  all  the  mys- 
teries of  X ,  something  in  this  wise : 

"Dear  me!  there's  Mrs.  Smith;  she  has  on  that 
identical  yellow  bonnet  which  has  been  so  long  in 
Miss  Miffin's  shop- window.  Got  it  cheap,  no  doubt : 
Mr.  Smith  does  keep  the  poor  thing  so  close !  Anna- 
bella,  child,  make  haste;  just  tell  me  whether  that 
isn't  the  same  young  man  who  called  on  the  Joneses 
three  times  last  week !  Eed  whiskers  and  mous- 
taches. One  cf  those  horrid  officers,  no  doubt.  My 


1 74  Gossip. 

dear  Miss  Maria,  I  never  do  like  to  say  a  word 
against  my  neighbours ;  but  before  I  would  let  my 

Annabella  go  about  like  the  Jones's  girls 

Bless  my  life!  there's  that  cab  at  the  corner  house 
again — and  her  husband  out !  "Well,  if  I  ever  could 
have  believed  it,  even  of  silly,  flirty  Mrs.  Green ! 
whom  people  do  say  old  Mr.  Green  married  out  of  a 
London  hosier's,  where  he  went  in  to  buy  a  pair  of 
gloves.  What  a  shocking  place  London  must 
be  .  .  .  . !  But  I  beg  your  pardon,  my  dear  .  .  .  ." 
And  so  on,  and  so  on. 

This,  slightly  varied,  was  the  stock  conversation, 
which  seemed  amply  sufficient  to  fill  the  minds  and 
hours  of  the  whole  family,  and,  indeed,  of  every  family 
atX . 

Maria  and  Bob  used  to  go  home  laughing,  and 
thanking  their  stars  that  they  did  live  in  that  shocking 
place  London.  Bob  made  harmless  jokes  at  the 
expense  of  the  unconscious  household  who, 

"  Pinnacled  dim  in  the  intense  inane," 
could  drop  down,  hawk-like,  upon  reputations,  bon- 


Gossip. 


nets,  and  beans.  Maria  gave  vent  to  a  majestic  but 
indignant  pity  ;  and  both  hugged  themselves  in  the 
belief  that  never,  nnder  any  circumstances,  could  they 
sink  to  such  a  dead-level  of  folly,  vacuity,  spite. 

Weeks  passed  —  rather  slowly,  especially  when 
of  autumn  evenings,  they  found  themselves  minus 
books,  piano,  theatre,  concerts,  society  —  in  fact,  in  pre- 
cisely the  position  of  the  inhabitants  of  X  -  all 
year  round.  So,  as  daylight  was  less  dull  than  candle- 
light, they  used  to  rise  at  unearthly  hours  ;  dine  —  • 
shall  I  betray  the  Goths  ?—  at  11.30  A.M.,  take  tea  at 
4  P.M.,  and  go  to  bed  as  soon  after  dark  as  they  could 
for  shame.  At  last,  from  very  dulness,  Maria  got 
into  the  habit  of  sitting  at  the  window  and  telling  Bob 
what  was  passing  in  the  street,  interspersed  with  lit- 
tle illustrative  anecdotes  she  had  caught  up,  "just  as 
bits  of  human  nature."  One,  the  stock  scandal  of  the 
place,  interested  them  both  so  much,  that  they  watched 
for  the  heroine's  carriage  every  day  for  a  week  ;  and 
when  at  last  Maria  cried,  "  There  it  is  !"  Bob  jumped 
up  with  all  the  eagerness  of  Annabella  herself,  and 
missing  the  sight,  retired  grumbling:  ""What  non« 


l  y6  Gossip. 

sense !  I  declare  you're  getting  just  as  bad  a  gossip 
as  anybody  here !"  '(N.B. — The  masculine  mind,  in 
an  accusative  form,  always  prefers  the  second  person 
of  the  verb.) 

"  Well,"  observed  Maria,  "  shall  I  give  up  telling 
you  any  news  I  happen  to  hear  ?" 

"  Oh,  no !  You  may  tell  what  you  like.  As  the 
man  said  when  his  wife  beat  him — it  amuses  you,  and 
it  doesn't  harm  me." 

Finally — I  have  it  from  Maria's  own  confession — 
coming  in  one  afternoon  absorbed  in  cogitations  as  to 
what  possible  motive  Mrs.  Green  could  have  in  telling 
Mrs.  Elizabeth  Jones  she  wished  to  call  on  her,  Maria ; 
and  what  on  earth  would  be  done  if  Annabella,  whose 
mamma  wouldn't  allow  her  even  to  bow  to  Mrs. 
Green,  should  happen  to  call  at  the  same  time — she 
was  quite  startled  by  Bob's  springing  up  from  the 
sofa  to  meet  her,  with  an  air  of  great  relief. 

11  So  you're  back  at  last !  Well,  who  did  you  see, 
and  what  did  they  say  to  you?  Do  sit  down,  and 
let's  hear  all  the  gossip  going." 

"  Gossip  !"     And  meeting  one  another's  eyes,  they 


Gossip.  \-]~i 

both  burst  into  a  hearty  fit  of  laughter,  declaring 
they  never  again  would  pride  themselves  on  being  a 
bit  better  than  their  neighbours. 

Ay,  fatal  and  vile  as  her  progeny  may  be,  "the 
mother  of  mischief,"  says  the  proverb,  "is  no  bigger 
than  a  midge's  wing."  Nay,  as  many  a  vice  can  be 
traced  back  to  an  exaggerated  virtue,  this  hateful  pro- 
pensity to  tittle-tattle  springs  from  the  same  peculiarity 
which,  rightly  guided,  constitutes  womanhood's  chief- 
est  strength  and  charm ;  blesses  many  a  worthless 
man  with  a  poor,  fond,  faithful  wife,  who  loves  him 
for  nothing  that  he  is  or  does,  but  merely  because  he 
is  himself;  forgives  to  many  a  scapegrace  son  or  bro- 
ther a  hundred  sins,  and  follows  him  to  the  grave  or 
the  scaffold,  blind  to  everything  except  the  fact  that 
he  is  her  own.  Personal  interests,  personal  attach- 
ments, personal  prejudices,  are,  whether  we  own  it  or 
not,  the  ruling  bias  of  us  women  :  it  is  better  to  own 
it  at  once,  govern,  correct,  and  modify  it,  than  to  deny 
it  in  name,  and  betray  it  in  every  circumstance  of  our 
lives. 

Men,  whose  habits  of  thought  and  action  are  at 
8* 


i  y8  Gossip. 

once  more  selfish  and  less  personal  than  ours,  are 
very  seldom  given  to  gossiping.  They  will  take  a 
vast  interest  in  the  misgovernment  of  India,  or  the 
ill -cooking  of  their  own  dinners;  but  any  topic  be- 
twixt these  two — such  as  the  mismanagement  of  their 
neighbour's  house,  or  the  extravagance  of  their  part- 
ner's wife — is  a  matter  of  very  minor  importance. 
They  "  canna  be  fashed"  with  trifles  that  don't  imme- 
diately concern  themselves.  It  is  the  women — always 
the  women — who  poke  about  with  undefended  far 
thing  candles  in  the  choke-damp  passages  of  this 
dangerous  world ;  who  put  their  feeble  ignorant  hands 
to  the  Archimedean  lever  that,  slight  as  it  seems,  can 
shake  society  to  its  lowest  foundations.  For,  though 
it  irks  me  to  wound  with  strong  language  the  deli- 
cate sensibilities  of  my  silver-tongued  sisters,  I  would 
just  remind  them  of  what  they  may  hear,  certainly 
one  Sunday  in  the  year,  concerning  that  same  dainty 
little  member,  which  is  said  to  be  "a  fire,  a  world  of 
iniquity  .  .  .  and  it  is  set  on  fire  of  hell" 

Verily,  the  "Silent  Woman"— a  lady  without  a 
head,  who  officiates  as  sign  to  many  a  country  inn— 


Gossip.  1 79 

had  need  to  be  so  depicted.  But  it  is  not  "the  gift  of 
the  gab,"  the  habit  of  using  a  dozen  words  where  one 
would  answer  the  purpose,  which  may  arise  from 
want  of  education,  nervousness,  or  surplus  but  honest 
energy  and  earnest  feeling — it  is  not  that  which  docs 
the  harm ;  it  is  the  lamentable  fact,  that  whether  from 
a  superabundance  of  the  imaginative  faculty,  careless- 
ness of  phrase,  or  a  readiness  to  jump  at  conclusions, 
and  represent  facts  not  as  they  are  but  as  they  appear 
to  the  representers,  very  few  women  are  absolutely 
and  invariably  veracious.  Men  lie  wilfully,  delibe- 
rately, on  principle,  as  it  were;  but  women  quite 
involuntarily.  Nay,  they  would  start  with  horror 
from  the  bare  thought  of  such  a  thing.  They  love 
truth  in  their  hearts,  and  yet — and  yet — they  are 
constantly  giving  to  things  a  slight  colouring  cast 
by  their  own  individuality ;  twisting  facts  a  little. 
a  very  little,  according  as  their  tastes,  affections,  or 
convenience  indicate:  never  perhaps  telling  a  direct 
lie,  but  merely  a  deformed  or  prevaricated  truth. 

And  this  makes  the  fatal  danger  of  gossip.     If  all 
people  spoke  the  absolute  truth  about  their  neigh« 

1 


1 8c  Gossip. 

hours,  or  held  their  tongues,  which  is  always  a  pos- 
sible alternative,  it  would  not  so  much  matter.  At 
the  worst,  there  would  be  a  few  periodical  social 
thunder-storms,  and  then  the  air  would  be  clear.  But 
the  generality  of  people  do  not  speak  the  truth :  they 
speak  what  they  see,  or  think,  or  believe,  or  wish 
Few  observant  characters  can  have  lived  long  in  the 
woild  without  learning  to  receive  every  fact  commu- 
nicated second-hand  with  reservations — reservations 
that  do  not  necessarily  stamp  the  communicator  as  a 
liar,  but  merely  make  allowance  for  certain  inevitable 
variations,  like  the  variations  of  the  compass,  which 
every  circumnavigator  must  calculate  upon  as  a  natu- 
ral necessity. 

Thus,  Miss  A.,  in  the  weary  small-talk  of  a  morn- 
ing call,  not  quite  knowing  what  she  says,  or  glad  to 
say  anything  for  the  sake  of  talking,  lets  drop  to  Mrs. 
B.  that  she  heard  Mrs.  C.  say :  "She  would  take  care 
to  keep  her  boys  out  of  the  way  of  the  little  B.V— a 
very  harmless  remark,  since,  when  it  was  uttered,  the 
little  B.'s  were  just  recovering  from  the  measles.  But 
Miss  A.,  an  absent  sort  of  woman,  repeats  it  three 


Gossip.  181 

months  afterwards,  forgetting  all  about  the  measles ; 
indeed,  slie  has  persuaded  herself  that  it  referred  to 
the  rudeness  of  the  B.  lads,  who  are  her  own  private 
terror,  and  she  thinks  it  may  probably  do  some  good 
to  give  their  over-indulgent  mamma  a  hint  on  the 
subject.  Mrs.  B.,  too  well-bred  to  reply  more  than 
"Indeed!"  is  yet  mortally  offended;  declines  the 
next  dinner-party  at  the  C.'s,  and  confides  her  private 
reason  for  doing  so  to  Miss  D.,  a  good-natured  chat- 
terbox, who,  with  the  laudable  intention  of  getting  to 
the  bottom  of  the  matter,  and  reconciling  the  bellige- 
rents, immediately  communicates  the  same.  "  What 
have  I  done?"  exclaims  the  hapless  Mrs.  C.  "I 
never  said  any  such  thing !"  "  Oh,  but  Miss  A.  pro- 
tests she  heard  you  say  it."  Again  Mrs.  C.  warmly 
denies ;  which  denial  goes  back  directly  to  Miss  A. 
and  Mrs.  B.,  imparting  to  both  them  and  Miss  D.  a 
very  unpleasant  feeling  as  to  the  lady's  veracity.  A 
few  days  after,  thinking  it  over,  she  suddenly  recol- 
lects that  she  really  did  say  the  identical  words,  with 
reference  solely  to  the  measles  ;  bursts  into  a  hearty 
fit  of  laughter,  and  congratulates  herself  that  it  is  all 


182  Gossip. 

right.  But  not  so  :  the  mountain  cannot  so  quickly 
shrink  int_>  its  original  mole-hill.  Mrs.  B.,  whose 
•weak  point  is  her  children,  receives  the  explanation 
with  considerable  dignity  and  reserve  ;  is  "  sorry  that 
Mrs.  C.  should  have  troubled  herself  about  such  a 
trifle;"  shakes  hands,  and  professes  herself  quite 
satisfied.  Nevertheless,  in  her  own  inmost  mind  she 
thinks — and  her  countenance  shows  it — "I  believe 
you  said  it,  for  all  that."  A  slight  coolness  ensues, 
which  everybody  notices,  discusses,  and  gives  a  sepa- 
rate version  of;  all  which  versions  somehow  or  other 
come  to  the  ears  of  the  parties  concerned,  who,  with- 
out clearly  knowing  why,  feel  vexed  and  aggrieved 
each  at  the  other.  The  end  of  it  all  is  a  total  es- 
trangement. 

Is  not  a  little  episode  like  this  at  the  root  of  nearly 
all  the  family  feuds,  lost  friendships,  "cut"  acquaint- 
anceships, so  pitifully  rife  in  the  world  ?  Earely  any 
great  matter,  a  point  of  principle  or  a  violated  pledge, 
an  act  of  justice  or  dishonesty ;  it  is  almost  alwaya 
some  petty  action  misinterpreted,  some  idle  word 
repeated — or  a  succession  of  both  these,  gathering  and 


Gossip.  1 83 

gathering  like  the  shingle  on  a  sea-beach,  something 
fresh  being  left  behind  by  every  day's  tide.  Not  the 
men's  doing — the  fathers,  husbands,  or  brothers,  who 
have  no  time  to  bother  themselves  about  such  trifles, 
and  who,  if  they  see  fit  to  quarrel  over  their  two 
grand  causes  belli,  religion  and  politics,  generally  do  it 
outright,  and  either  abuse  one  another  like  pickpock- 
ets in  newspaper  columns;  or,  in  revenge  for  any 
moral  poaching  on  one  another's  property,  take  a 
horsewhip  or  a  pair  of  pistols,  and  so  end  the  matter. 
No.  It  is  the  women  who  are  at  the  bottom  of  it 
all,  who,  in  the  narrowness  or  blankness  of  their 
daily  lives,  are  glad  to  catch  at  any  straw  of  interest 
— especially  the  unmarried,  the  idle,  the  rich,  and  the 
childless.  As  says  the  author  I  have  before  referred 
to :  "  People  not  otherwise  ill-natured  are  pleased 
with  the  misfortunes  of  their  neighbours,  solely  be- 
cause it  gives  them  something  to  think  abput,  some- 
thing to  talk  about.  They  imagine  how  the  principal 
actors  and  sufferers  will  bear  it ;  what  they  will  do  ; 
how  they  will  look ;  and  so  the  dull  bystander  forma 
a  sort  of  drama  for  himself." 


i&j  Gossip. 

And  what  a  drama!  Such  a  petty  plot — such 
small  heroes  and  heroines — such  a  harmless  villain ! 
"When  we  think  of  the  contemptible  nothings  that 
form  the  daily  scandal-dish  of  most  villages,  towns, 
cities,  or  communities,  and  then  look  up  at  the  starry 
heaven  which  overshines  them  all,  dropping  its  rain 
upon  the  just  and  the  unjust — or  look  abroad  on  the 
world,  of  whose  wide  interests,  miseries,  joys,  duties, 
they  form  such  an  infinitesimal  part,  one  is  tempted 
to  blush  for  one's  species.  Strange,  that  while  hun- 
dreds and  thousands  in  this  Britain  have  not  a  crust 
to  eat,  Mrs.  E.  should  become  the  town's  talk  for 
three  days,  because  owing  a  dinner-party  to  the  F.'s, 
G.'s,  H.'s,  and  J.'s,  she  clears  accounts  at  a  cheaper 
rate  by  giving  a  general  tea-party  instead.  "  So  mean ! 
and  with  Mr.  E.'s  large  income,  too !"  That  while 
millions  are  living  and  dying  without  God  in  the 
world,  despising  Him,  forgetting  Him,  or  never  having 
even  heard  His  name,  Miss  K.,  a  really  exemplary 
woman,  should  not  only  refuse,  even  for  charitable 
purposes,  to  associate  with  the  L.'s,  an  equally  irre- 
proachable family  as  to  morals  and  benevolence,  but 


Gossip.  18  J 

should  actually  forbid  her  district  poor  to  receive 
their  teaching  or  their  Bibles,  because  they  refuse  to 
add  thereto  the  Church  of  England  Catechism.  As 
to  visiting  them — "  Quite  impossible ;  they  are  Dis- 
senters, you  know." 

The  gossip  of  opposing  religionism — I  will  not 
even  call  it  religion,  though  religion  itself  is  often 
very  far  from  pure  "  godliness" — is  at  once  the  most 
virulent  and  the  saddest  phase  of  the  disease ;  and  our 
sex,  it  must  be  confessed,  are  the  more  liable  to  it, 
especially  in  the  provinces.  There,  the  parish  curate 
may  at  times  be  seen  walking  with  the  Unitarian  or 
Independent  minister,  if  they  happen  to  be  well- 
educated  young  men  of  a  social  turn ;  even  the  rec- 
tor, worthy  man  !  will  occasionally  have  the  sense,  to 
join  with  other  worthy  men  of  every  denomination 
in  matters  of  local  improvement.  But  oh !  the  talk 
that  this  gives  rise  to  among  the  female  population  I 
till  the  reverend  objects  of  it,  who  in  their  daily 
duties  have  usually  more  to  do  with  women  than 
with  men — another  involuntary  tribute  to  those  vir- 
tues which  form  the  bright  under-side  of  every  fault 


186  Gossip. 

that  can  be  alleged  against  us — are  often  driven  to 
give  in  to  the  force  of  public  opinion,  to  that  inces- 
sant babble  of  silvery  waters  which  wears  through  the 
rockiest  soil. 

The  next  grand  source  of  gossip — and  this,  too, 
curiously  indicates  how  true  must  be  the  instinct  of 
womanhood,  even  in  its  lowest  forms  so  evidently  a 
corruption  from  the  highest — is  love,  and  with  or 
without  that  preliminary,  matrimony.  What  on 
earth  should  we  do  if  we  had  no  matches  to  make, 
or  mar ;  no  "  unfortunate  attachments"  to  shake  our 
heads  over;  no  flirtations  to  speculate  about  and  com- 
ment upon  with  knowing  smiles ;  no  engagements  "on" 
or  "  off"  to  speak  our  minds  about,  nosing  out  every 
little  circumstance,  and  ferreting  out  our  game  to  their 
very  hole,  as  if  all  their  affairs,  their  hopes,  trials, 
faults,  or  wrongs,  were  being  transacted  for  our  own 
private  and  peculiar  entertainment !  Of  all  forms  of 
gossip — I  speak  of  mere  gossip,  as  distinguished  from 
the  carrion-crow  and  dunghill-fly  system  of  scandal- 
mongcring— this  tittle-tattle  about  love-affairs  is  the 
moat  general,  the  most  odious,  and  the  most  dangerous. 


Gossip.  1 87 

Every  one  of  us  must  have  known  within  our  own 
experience  many  an  instance  of  dawning  loves 
checked,  unhappy  loves  made  cruelly  public,  happy 
loves  embittered,  warm,  honest  loves  turned  cold,  by 
this  horrible  system  of  gossiping  about  young  or  un- 
married people — "  evening"  to  one  another  folk  who 
have  not  the  slightest,  mutual  inclination,  or  if  they 
had,  such  an  idea  put  into  their  heads  would  effec- 
tually smother  it ;  setting  down  every  harmless  free 
liking  as  "  a  case,"  or  "  a  flirtation ;"  and  if  anything 
"serious"  does  turn  up,  pouncing  on  it,  hunting  it 
down,  and  never  letting  it  go  till  dismembered  and 
ground  to  the  bone.  Should  it  ever  come  to  a  mar- 
riage— and  the  wonder  is,  considering  all  these  things, 
that  any  love-affair  ever  does  come  to  that  climax  at 
all,  or  that  any  honest-hearted,  delicate-minded  young 
people,  ever  have  the  courage  to  indulge  the  world  by 
an  open  attachment  or  engagement — heavens  and 
earth !  how  it  is  talked  about !  How  one  learns  every 
single  item  of  what  "he"  said  and  "she"  said,  and 
what  all  the  relations  said,  and  how  it  came  about,  and 
how  it  neve]  would  have  come  about  at  all  but  foi 


1 88  Gossip. 

So-and-so,  and  what  they  have  to  live  upon,  and 
capable  or  incapable  they  are  of  living  upon  it  tmd 
how  very  much  better  both  parties  would  have  done 
if  they  had  only  each  left  the  choosing  of  the  other  to 
about  four-and-twenty  anxious  friends,  all  of  which 
were  quite  certain  the  affianced  pair  never  would 
suit  one  another,  but  would  have  exactly  suited 
somebody  else,  &c.  &c.,  ad  libitum  and  ad  infi- 
nitum. 

Many  women,  otherwise  kindly  and  generous,  have 
in  this  matter  no  more  consideration  towards  their 
own  sex  or  the  other,  no  more  sense  of  the  sanctity 
and  silence  due  to  the  relation  between  them,  than  if 
the  divinely  instituted  bond  of  marriage  were  no 
higher  or  purer  than  the  natural  instincts  of  the  beasts 
that  perish.  It  is  most  sad,  nay,  it  is  sickening,  to  see 
the  way  in  which,  from  the  age  of  fourteen  upwards, 
a  young  woman,  on  this  one  subject  of  her  possible  or 
probable  matrimonial  arrangements,  is  quizzed,  talked 
over,  commented  upon,  advised,  condoled  with, 
lectured,  interrogated — until,  if  she  has  happily  never 
had  cause  to  blush  for  herself,  not  a  week  passes  that 


Gossip.  1 89 

slie  does  not  blush,  for  her  sex,  out  of  utter  contempt, 
disgust,  and  indignation. 

Surely  all  right-minded  women  ought  to  set  theii 
fa^es  resolutely  against  this  desecration  of  feelings,  to 
maintain  the  sanctity  of  which  is  the  only  preser- 
vative of  our  influence — that  is,  our  rightful  and  holy 
influence,  over  men.  Not  that,  after  the  school  of 
Mesdames  Barbauld,  Hannah  More,  and  other  excel- 
lent but  exceedingly  prosy  personages,  love  should  be 
exorcised  out  of  young  women's  lives  and  conversa- 
tions— query,  if  possible  ? — but  let  it  be  treated  of 
delicately,  earnestly,  rationally,  as  a  matter  which,  if 
they  have  any  business  with  it  at  all,  is  undoubtedly 
the  most  serious  business  of  their  lives.  There  can  be 
— there  ought  to  be — no  medium  course ;  a  love-affair 
is  either  sober  earnest  or  contemptible  folly,  if  not 
wickedness :  to  gossip  about  it  is,  in  the  first  instance, 
intrusive,  unkind,  or  dangerous;  in  the  second, 
simply  siTy.  Practical  people  may  choose  between 
the  two  alternatives. 

Gossip,  public,  private,  social — to  fight  against  it 
either  by  word  or  pen  seems,  after  all,  like  fighting 


190  Gossip. 

with  shadows.  Everybody  laughs  at  it,  protests 
against  it,  blames  and  despises  it ;  yet  everybody  does 
it,  or  at  least  encourages  others  in  it:  quite  inno- 
cently, unconsciously,  in  such  a  small,  harmless 
fashion — yet,  we  do  it.  We  must  talk  about  some- 
thing, and  it  is  not  all  of  us  who  can  find  a  rational 
topic  of  conversation,  or  discuss  it  when  found. 
Many,  too,  who  in  their  hearts  hate  the  very  thought 
of  tattle  and  tale-bearing,  are  shy  of  lifting  up  their 
voices  against  it,  lest  they  should  be  ridiculed  for 
Quixotism,  or  thought  to  set  themselves  up  as  more 
virtuous  than  their  neighbours.  Others,  like  our 
lamented  friends,  Maria  and  Bob,  from  mere  idleness 
and  indifference,  long  kept  hovering  over  the  unclean 
stream,  at  last  drop  into  it  and  are  drifted  away  by  it. 
Where  does  it  land  them  ?  Ay,  where  ? 

If  I,  or  any  one,  were  to  unfold  on  this  subject  only 
our  own  experience  and  observation — not  a  tittle 
more — what  a  volume  it  would  make  I 

Families  set  by  the  ears,  parents  against  children, 
brothers  against  brothers — not  to  mention  brothers 
and  sisters-in-law,  who  seem  generally  to  assume* 


Gossip. 


with  the  legal  title,  the  legal  right  of  interminably 
squabbling.  Friendships  sundered,  betrothals  broken 
marriages  annulled  —  in  the  spirit,  at  least,  while  in 
the  letter  kept  outwardly,  to  be  a  daily  torment, 
temptation,  and  despair.  Acquaintances  that  would 
otherwise  have  maintained  a  safe  and  not  unkindly 
indifference,  forced  into  absolute  dislike  —  originating 
how  they  know  not;  but  there  it  is.  Old  com- 
panions, that  would  have  borne  each  other's  little 
foibles,  have  forgiven  and  forgotten  little  annoyances, 
and  kept  up  an  honest  affection  till  death,  driven  at 
last  into  open  rupture,  or  frozen  into  a  coldness  more 
hopeless  still,  which  no  after-  warmth  will  ever  have 
power  to  thaw. 

Truly,  from  the  smallest  Little  Peddlington  that 
carries  on,  year  by  year,  its  bloodless  wars,  its  harm- 
less scandals,  its  daily  chronicle  of  interminable 
nothings,  to  the  great  metropolitan  world,  fashiona- 
ble, intellectual,  noble,  or  royal,  the  blight  and  curse 
of  civilised  life  is  gossip. 

How  is  it  to  be  removed  ?  How  are  scores  of  well- 
meaning  women,  who  in  their  hearts  really  like  and 


1 92  Gossip. 

respect  one  another — who,  did  trouble  come  to  air? 
one  of  them,  would  be  ready  with  countless  mutual 
kindnesses,  small  and  great,  and  among  whom  the 
sudden  advent  of  death  would  subdue  every  idle 
tongue  to  honest  praise,  and  silence,  at  once  and  for 
ever,  every  bitter  word  against  the  neighbour 
departed — how 'are  they  to  be  taught  to  be  every 
day  as  generous,  considerate,  liberal-minded — in 
short,  womanly,  as  they  would  assuredly  be  in  any- 
exceptionable  day  of  adversity?  How  are  they  to 
be  made  to  feel  the  littleness,  the  ineffably  pitiful 
littleness,  of  raking  up  and  criticising  every  slight 
peculiarity  of  manner,  habits,  temper,  character,  word, 
action,  motive — household,  children,  servants,  living, 
furniture,  and  dress,  thus  constituting  themselves  the 
amateur  rag-pickers,  chiffonntires — I  was  going  to  say, 
scavengers,  but  they  do  not  leave  the  streets  clean—- 
of all  the  blind  alleys  and  foul  by-ways  of  society ; 
while  the  whole  world  lies  free  and  open  before  them, 
to  do  their  work  and  choose  their  innocent  pleasure 
therein — this  busy,  bright,  beautiful  world  ? 

Such  a  revolution  is,  I  doubt,  quite  hopeless  on 


Gossip.  193 

this  side  Paradise.  But  every  woman  has  it  in  1  er 
power  personally  to  withstand  the  spread  of  this 
great  plague  of  tongues,  since  it  lies  within  her  own 
volition  what  she  will  do  with  her  own. 

"  All  the  king's  horses  and  all  the  king  s  men" 

cannot  make  us  either  use  or  bridle  that  little  mem- 
ber. It  is  our  never-failing  weapon,  double-edged, 
delicate,  bright,  keen ;  a  weapon  not  necessarily 
either  lethal  or  vile,  but  taking  its  character  solely 
from  the  manner  in  which  we  use  it. 

First,  let  every  one  of  us  cultivate,  in  every  word 
that  issues  from  our  mouth,  absolute  truth.  I  say 
cultivate,  because  to  very  few  people — as  may  be 
noticed  of  most  young  children — does  truth,  this  rigid, 
literal  veracity,  come  by  nature.  To  many,  even 
who  love  it  and  prize  it  dearly  in  others,  it  comes 
only  after  the  self-control,  watchfulness,  and  bitcer 
experience  of  years.  Let  no  one  conscious  of  need- 
ing this  care  be  afraid  to  begin  it  from  the  very 

beginning ;  or  in  her  daily  life  and  conversation  fear 

9 


1 94  Gossip. 

to  confess :  "  Stay,  I  said  a  little  more  than  1  meant 
--"I  think  I  was  not  quite  correct  about  such  a 
thing'7 — "  Thus  it  was ;  at  least  thus  it  seemed  to  me 
personally,"  &c.  &c.  Even  in  the  simplest,  most 
everyday  statements,  we  cannot  be  too  guarded  or 
too  exact.  The  "hundred  cats"  that  the  little  lad 
saw  "fighting  on  our  back-wall,"  and  which  after- 
wards dwindled  down  to  "  our  cat  and  another,"  is  A 
case  in  point,  not  near  so  foolish  as  it  seems. 

"Believe  only  half  of  what  you  see,  and  nothing  that 
you  hear,"  is  a  cynical  saying,  and  yet  less  bitter  than 
at  first  appears.  It  does  not  argue  that  human  nature 
is  false,  but  simply  that  it  is  human  nature.  How 
can  any  fallible  human  being  with  two  eyes,  two  ears, 
one  judgment,  and  one  brain — all  more  or  less  limited 
in  their  apprehensions  of  things  external,  and  biassed 
by  a  thousand  internal  impressions,  purely  individual 
— how  can  we  possibly  decide  on  even  the  plainest 
actions  of  another,  to  say  nothing  of  the  words, 
which  may  have  gone  through  half-a-dozen  different 
translations  and  modifications,  or  the  motives,  which 
can  only  be  known  to  the  Omniscient  himself  ? 


Gossip.  195 

In  His  name,  therefore,  let  us  "judge  not,  that  we 
be  not  judged."  Let  us  be  "  quick  to  hear,  slow  to 
speak;"  slowest  of  all  to  speak  any  evil,  or  to  listen 
to  it,  about  anybody.  The  good  we  need  be  less 
careful  over;  we  are  not  likely  ever  to  hear  too 
much  of  that. 

"But,"  say  some — very  excellent  people,  too — 
"  are  we  never  to  open  our  mouths? — never  to  men- 
tion the  ill  things  we  see  or  hear ;  never  to  stand  up 
for  the  right,  by  proclaiming,  or  by  warning  and  tes- 
tifying against  the  wrong  ?" 

Against  wrong  in  the  abstract,  yes:  but  against 
individuals — doubtful.  All  the  gossip  in  the  world, 
or  the  dread  of  it,  will  never  turn  one  domestic 
tyrant  into  a  decent  husband  or  father;  one  light 
woman  into  a  matron  leal  and  wise.  Do  your  neigh- 
bour good  by  all  means  in  your  power,  moral  as  well 
as  physical — by  kindness,  by  patience,  by  unflinch- 
ing resistance  against  every  outward  evil — by  the 
silent  preaching  of  your  own  contrary  life.  But  if 
the  only  good  you  can  do  him  is  by  talking  at  him, 
or  about  him — nay,  even  to  him,  if  it  be  in  a  self 


1 96  Gossip. 

satisfied,  super-virtuous  style — such  as  I  earnestly 
hope  the  present  writer  is  not  doing — you  had  much 
better  leave  him  alone.  If  he  be  foolish,  soon  or 
late  he  will  reap  the  fruit  of  his  folly  ;  if  wicked,  be 
sure  his  sin  will  find  him  out.  If  he  has  wronged 
you,  you  will  neither  lessen  the  wrong  nor  increase 
his  repentance  by  parading  it.  And  if — since  there 
are  two  sides  to  every  subject,  and  it  takes  two  to 
make  a  quarrel — you  have  wronged  him,  surely  you 
will  not  right  him  or  yourself  by  abusing  him.  In 
Heaven's  name,  let  him  alone. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

WOMEN    OF    THE    WORLD. 

THE  world!  It  is  a  word  capable  of  as  diverse 
interpretations  or  misinterpretations  as  the  thing 
itself — a  thing  by  various  people  supposed  to  belong 
to  heaven,  man,  or  the  devil,  or  alternately  to  all 
three.  But  this  is  not  the  place  to  argue  the  pros 
and  cons  of  that  doctrinal  theology  which  views  as 
totally  evil  the  same  world  which  its  Creator  pro- 
nounced to  be  "  very  good,"  the  same  world  in  and 
for  which  its  Redeemer  lived  as  well  as  died ;  nor, 
taking  it  at  its  present  worst,  a  sinful,  miserable, 
mysterious,  yet  neither  wholly  comfortless,  hopeless, 
nor  godless  world,  shall  I  refer  further  to  that  strange 
Manichgeanism  which  believes  that  anything  earth 
possesses  of  good  can  have  sprung  from  any  other 
source  than  the  All-good,  that  any  happiness  in  it 
could  exist  for  a  moment,  unless  derived  from  Infinite 
Perfection. 


198  Women  of  the  World. 

"  A  woman  of  the  world" — "  Quite  a  woman  of  the 
world" — "A  mere  woman  of  the  world" —  with  how 
many  modifications  of  tone  and  emphasis  do  we  hear 
the  phrase;  which  seems  inherently  to  imply  a 
contradiction.  Nature  herself  has  apparently  decided 
for  women,  physically  as  well  as  mentally,  that  their 
natural  destiny  should  be  not  of  the  world.  In  the 
earlier  ages  of  Judaism  and  Islamism,  nobody  ever 
seems  to  have  ventured  a  doubt  of  this.  Christianity 
alone  raised  the  woman  to  her  rightful  and  original 
place,  as  man's  one  help-meet,  bone  of  his  "bone  and 
flesh  of  his  flesh,  his  equal  in  all  points  of  vital 
moment,  yet  made  suited  to  him  by  an  harmonious 
something  which  is  less  inferiority  than  difference. 
And  this  difference  will  for  ever  exist.  Yolumes 
written  on  female  progress ;  speeches  interminable, 
delivered  from  the  public  rostrum  in  female  treble, 
which  from  that  very  publicity  and  bravado  would 
convert  the  most  obvious  "rights"  into  something 
very  like  a  wrong ;  biographies  numberless  of  great 
women — aye,  and  good — who,  stepping  out  of  their 
natural  sphere,  have  done  service  in  courts,  camps,  01 


Women  of  the  World.  199 

diplomatic  bureaus :  all  these  exceptional  cases  will 
never  set  aside  the  universal  law,  that  woman's 
proper  place  is  home.  Not  merely 

"To  suckle  fools  and  chronicle  small-beer," 

— Shakspeare,  who  knew  us  well,  would  never  have 
made  any  but  an  logo  say  so — but  to  go  hand-in-hand 
with  man  on  their  distinct  yet  parallel  roads,  to  be 
within-doors  what  he  has  to  be  in  the  world  without 
— sole  influence  and  authority  in  the  limited  mon- 
archy of  home. 

Thus,  to  be  a  "  woman  of  the  world,"  though 
not  essentially  a  criminal  accusation,  implies  a  state 
of  being  not  natural,  and  therefore  not  happy. 
Without  any  sentimental  heroics  against  the  hollow- 
ness  of  such  an  existence,  and  putting  aside  the 
religious  view  of  it  altogether,  I  believe  most  people 
will  admit  that  no  woman  living  entirely  in  and  for 
the  world  ever  was,  ever  could  be,  a  happy  woman ; 
that  is,  according  to  the  definition  of  happiness, 
which  supposes  it  to  consist  in  having  our  highest 


200  Women  of  the  World. 

faculties  most  highly  developed,  and  in  use  to  then 
fullest  extent.  Any  other  sort  of  happiness,  either 
dependent  on  externally  favourable  circumstances, 
or  resting  on  safe  negations  of  ill,  we  must  be 
considered  to  possess  in  common  with  the  oyster: 
indeed,  that  easy -tempered  and  steadfast  mollusk,  if 
not  "in  love,"  probably  has  it  in  much  greater 
perfection  than  we. 

Starting  with  the  proposition  that  a  woman  of  the 
world  is  not  a  happy  woman  ;  that  if  she  had  been, 
most  likely  she  never  would  have  become  what  she 
is — I  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  nail  her  up,  poor 
painted  jay,  as  a  "  shocking  example"  over  Society's 
bam-door,  around  which  strut  and  crow  a  great  many 
fowls  quite  as  mean  and  not  half  so  attractive.  For 
she  is  very  charming  in  her  way — that  is,  the 
principal  and  best  type  of  her  class ;  she  wears  d 
merveitte  that  beautiful  mask  said  to  be  "  the  homage 
paid  by  vice  to  virtue."  And  since  the  successful 
imitation  of  an  article  argues  a  certain  acquaintance 
with  the  original,  she  may  once  upon  a  time  have 
actually  believed  in  many  of  those  things  which  she 


Women  of  the  World.  2oi 

now  so  cleverly  impersonates — virtue,  heroism,  truthj 
love,  friendship,  honour,  and  fidelity.  She  is  like 
certain  stamped-out  bronze  ornaments,  an  admirable 
imitation  of  real  womanhood — till  you  walk  round 
her  to  the  other  side. 

The  woman  of  the  world  is  rarely  a  very  young 
woman.  It  stands  to  reason,  she  could  not  be.  To 
young  people,  the  world  is  always  a  paradise — a  fool's 
paradise,  devoutly  believed  in  :  it  is  not  till  they  have 
found  out  its  shams  that  they  are  able  to  assume  them. 
By  that  time,  however,  they  have  ceased  to  be  fools : 
it  takes  a  certain  amount  of  undoubted  cleverness 
to  make  any  success,  or  take  any  rule  in  the  world. 

By  the  world,  I  do  not  mean  the  aristocratic  Vanity 
Fair — let  those  preach  of  it  who  move  up  and  down  or 
keep  stalls  therein — but  the  world  of  the  middle 
classes  ;  the  "  society"  into  which  drift  the  homeless, 
thoughtless,  ambitious,  pleasure-loving  among  them ; 
those  who  have  no  purpose  in  life  except  to  get 
through  it  somehow,  and  those  who  never  had  any 
interest  in  it  except  their  own  beloved  selves. 

A  woman  of  the  sort  I  write  of  may  in  one  sense  be 
9* 


202  Women  of  the  World. 

placed  at  the  lowest  deep  of  womanhood,  because  hei 
centre  of  existence  is  undoubtedl  y  herself.  You  may 
trace  this  before  you  have  been  introduced  to  her  five 
minutes :  in  the  sweet  manner  which  so  well  simu- 
lates a  universal  benevolence,  being  exactly  the  same 
to  everybody — namely,  everybody  worth  knowing ; 
in  the  air  of  interest  with  which  she  asks  a  dozen 
polite  or  kindly  questions,  of  which  she  never  waits 
for  the  answer  ;  in  the  instinctive  consciousness  you 
have  that  all  the  while  she  is  talking  agreeably  to 
you,  or  flatteringly  listening  to  your  talented  conver- 
sation, her  attention  is  on  the  qui  vive  after  everybody 
and  every  thing  throughout  the  room — -that  is  every 
thing  that  concerns  herself.  As  for  yourself,  from  the 
moment  you  have  passed  out  of  her  sight,  or  ceased  to 
minister  to  her  amusement  or  convenience,  you  may 
be  quite  certain  you  will  have  as  completely  slipped 
out  of  her  memory  as  if  you  had  vanished  into  ano- 
ther sphere.  Her  own  sphere  cannot  contain  yon ; 
for  though  it  seems  so  large,  it  has  no  real  existence  ' 
it  is  merely  a  reflection  of  so  much  of  the  outer  world 
as  can  be  received  into  the  one  small  drop  of  not 


Women  of  the  World.  203 

over    clear    water,   which  constitutes  this  woman's 
soul. 

x 

Yet  waste  not  your  wrath  upon  her — she  is  as 
much  to  be  pitied  as  blamed.  Do  not  grow  savage  at 
hearing  her,  in  that  softly-pitched  voice  of  hers,  talk 
sentiment  by  the  yard,  while  you  know  she  snubs  hor- 
ribly in  r  .ivate  every  unlucky  relative  she  has  ;  whose 
only  hours  of  quiet  are  when  they  joyfully  deck  her 
and  send  her  out  to  adorn  society.  Do  not  laugh 
when  she  criticises  pictures,  and  goes  into  raptures 
over  books,  which  you  are  morally  certain  she  has 
never  either  seen  or  read ;  or  if  she  had,  from  the  very 
character  of  her  mind,  could  no  more  understand  them 
than  your  cat  can  appreciate  Shakspeare.  Contemn 
her  not,  for  her  state  might  not  have  been  always  thus ; 
you  know  not  the  causes  which  produced  it ;  and — 
stay  till  you  see  her  end. 

There  is  a  class  of  worldly  women  which,  to  my 
mind,  is  much  worse  than  this ;  because  their  shams 
are  less  cleverly  sustained,  and  their  ideal  of  good  (for 
every  human  being  must  have  one — the  conqueror  his 
crown,  and  the  sot  his  gin-bottle)  is  far  lower  and 


204  Women  of  the  World. 

more  contemptible.  The  brilliant  woman  of  society 
has  usually  her  pet  philanthropies,  her  literary,  learn- 
ed, or  political  penchants,  in  which  the  good  she  thirsts 
after,  though  unreal,  is  the  imitation  of  a  vital  reality; 
and  as  such  is  often,  in  some  degree,  useful  to  others. 
But  this  pseudo-woman  of  the  world  has  no  ideal  be- 
yond fine  dresses,  houses,  carriages,  acquaintances ; 
and  even  these  she  does  not  value  for  their  own  sakes, 
only  because  they  are  superior  to  her  neighbour's. 

You  will  find  her  chiefly  among  the  half-educated 
nouveaux  riches  of  the  professional  classes,  vainly 
striving  to  attain  to  their  level — the  highest  point 
visible  on  her  horizon.  And  this  is  no  happy  alti- 
tude of  learning,  or  intelligence,  or  refinement ;  but 
merely  a  certain  "position" — a  place  at  a  dinner- 
party, or  a  house  in  a  square. 

"While  the  first  kind  of  woman  always  has  a  degree 
of  sway  in  society,  this  one  is  society's  most  prostrate 
slave.  She  dares  not  furnish  her  house,  choose  her 
servants,  eat  her  food,  pay  her  visits,  or  even  put  the 
gown  on  her  back  and  the  bonnet  on  her  head,  save 
by  rule  and  precedent.  She  will  worry  herself  and 


Women  of  the  World.  205 

you  about  the  veriest  trifles  of  convenance — such  as 
whether  it  is  most  genteel  to  leave  one  card  with  the 
corner  turned  down,  or  to  expend  a  separate  card 
upon  each  member  of  the  family.  To  find  herself  at 
a  full-dress  soiree  in  demi-toilette  would  make  this 
poor  lady  miserable  for  a  month ;  and  if  by  any 
chance  you  omitted  paying  her  the  proper  visit  of 
inquiry  after  an  entertainment,  she  would  consider 
you  meant  a  ^personal  insult,  and,  if  she  dared — only 
she  seldom  ventures  on  any  decisive  proceedings — 
would  cut  your  acquaintance  immediately. 

The  celebrated  Mrs.  Grundy  keeps  her  in  a  state  of 
mortal  servitude.  Even  in  'London,  which  to  a  lady 
of  medium  age,  established  character,  and  decent  be- 
haviour, is  the  most  independent  place  in  the  world  ; 
where,  as  I  once  heard  said :  "  My  dear,  be,  assured 
you  are  not  of  the  least  importance  to  anybody — may 
go  anywhere,  dress  anyhow,  and,  in  short,  do  any- 
thing you  like  except  stand  on  your  head" — even 
here  she  is  for  ever  pursued  by  a  host  of  vague  ad- 
jectives,  "proper,"  " correct,"  " genteel,"  which  hunt 
her  to  death  like  a  pack  of  rabid  hounds. 


206  Women  of  the  World. 

True,  the  world,  like  its  master,  is  "by  no  means  sc 
black  as  it  is  sometimes  painted:  it  often  has  a 
foundation  of  good  sense  and  right  feeling  under  its 
most  ridiculous  and  wearisome  forms ;  but  this  woman 
sees  only  the  forms,  among  which  she  blunders  like 
one  of  those  quack-artists  who  pretend  to  draw  the 
human  figure  without  the  smallest  knowledge  of 
anatomy.  Utterly  ignorant  of  the  framework  on 
which  society  moves,  she  is  perpetually  straining  at 
gnats  and  swallowing  camels,  both  in  manners  and 
morals.  To  her,  laborious  politeness  stands  in  the 
stead  of  kindliness ;  show,  of  hospitality  ;  etiquette, 
of  decorum.  Les  bienseances,  which  are  only  valuable 
as  being  the  index  and  offering  of  a  gentle,  generous, 
and  benevolent  heart,  are  to  this  unfortunate  woman 
the  brazen  altar  upon  which  she  immolates  her  own 
comfort  and  that  of  everybody  connected  with  her. 

How  often  do  we  hear  the  phrases, — "  "What  will 
the  world  say?" — "Perhaps;  but,  then,  we  live  in 
the  world." — "  A  good  soul  enough,  but  totally  igno- 
rant of  the  world." — It  is  worth  while  pausing  a  mo- 
ment to  consider  of  what  this  "world"  really  con- 


Women  of  the  World.  207 

sists,  that  women  seem  at  once  so  eagerly  to  run  after, 
and  to  be  so  terribly  afraid  of. 

Not  the  moral  world,  which  judges  their  sins — • 
with,  alas,  how  short-sighted  and  unevenly  balanced 
a  judgment,  often  ! — but  the  perpetually  changing 
world  of  custom,  which  regulates  their  clothes,  furni- 
ture, houses,  manner  of  living,  sayings,  doings,  and 
sufferings.  Take  it  to  pieces,  and  what  is  it?  No- 
thing but  a  floating  atmosphere  of  common-place  peo- 
ple surrounding  certain  congeries  of  people  a  little 
less  ordinary,  the  nucleus  of  which  is  generally  one 
person  decidedly  extra-ordinary,  who,  by  force  of 
will,  position,  intellect,  or  character,  or  by  some  un- 
questionable magnitude  of  virtue  or  vice,  stands  out 
distinctly  from  the  average  multitude,  and  rules  it  ac- 
cording to  his  or  her  individual  choice.  All  the  rest 
are,  as  I  said,  a  mere  atmosphere  of  nobodies ;  which 
atmosphere  can  be  cloven  any  day — one  sees  it  done 
continually — by  a  single  flesh-and-blood  arm :  yet  in 
it  the  woman  of  the  world  allows  herself  to  sit  and 
suffocate ;  dare  not  dress  comfortably,  act  and  speak 
straightforwardly,  live  naturally,  or  sometimes  even 


2o8  Women  of  the  World. 

honestly.  For  will  she  not  rather  run  in  debt  for  a 
bonnet,  than  wear  her  old  one  a  year  behind  the 
mode  f  give  a  ball  and  stint  the  family  dinner  for  a 
month  after  ?  take  a  large  house,  and  furnish  hand- 
some reception-rooms,  while  her  household  huddle  to- 
gether anyhow  in  untidy  attic  bed-chambers,  and  her 
servants  swelter  on  shake-downs  beside  the  kitchen 
fire?  She  prefers  this  a  hundred  times  to  stating 
plainly,  by  word  or  manner  :  "  My  income  is  so  much 
a-year — I  don't  care  who  knows  it — it  will  not  allow 
me  to  live  beyond  a  certain  rate,  it  will  not  keep  com- 
fortably both  my  family  and  acquaintance  ;  therefore, 
excuse  my  preferring  the  comfort  of  my  family  to  the 
entertainment  of  my  acquaintance.  And,  Society,  if 
you  choose  to  look  in  upon  us,  you  must  just  take  us 
as  we  are,  without  any  pretences  of  any  kind  ;  or  you 
may  shut  the  door,  and — good  by !" 

And  Society,  in  the  aggregate,  is  no  fool.  It  is 
astonishing  what  an  amount  of  "  eccentricity"  it  will 
stand  from  anybody  who  takes  the  bull  by  the 
horns,  too  fearless  or  too  indifferent  to  think  of  con- 
sequences. How  respectfully  it  will  follow  a  clevei 


Women  of  the  World.  209 

woman  who  is  superior  to  the  weakness  of  washing 
her  hands  or  combing  her  hair  properly,  whose  mil- 
liner and  dress-maker  must  evidently  have  lived  in 
the  last  century,  and  who,  in  her  manners  and  con- 
versation, often  breaks  through  every  rule  of  even 
the  commonest  civility  I  How  the  same  thoroughly 
respectable  set,  which  would  be  shocked  to  let  its 
young  daughters  take  a  morning  shopping  in  Eegent 
Street  unprotected  by  a  tall  footman,  will  carry  them 
at  night  to  a  soiree  given  by  a  Lady  Somebody,  of 
rather  more  doubtful  reputation,  till  some  rich  mar- 
riage, which  in  its  utter  lovelessness  and  hypocrisy 
may  have  been,  in  the  sight  of  Heaven,  the  foulest  of 
all  her  sins,  in  the  sight  of  man  obliterated  every  one 
of  them  at  once  I 

Yet  this  "  world"  which,  when  we  come  to  look  at 
it,  seems  nothing — less  than  nothing — a  chimera  that 
no  honest  heart  need  quail  at  for  a  moment-«-is  at 
once  the  idol  and  the  bete  noire  of  a  large  portion  of 
women-kind  during  their  whole  existence.  Ay,  from 
the  day  when  baby's  first  wardrobe  must  be  of  the 
most  extravagant  description,  costing  in  lace,  braid- 


21  o  Women  of  the  World. 

ing,  and  embroidery  a'most  as  much  as  mammas 
marriage  outfit — which  was  a  deal  too  fine  for  her 
station — when  all  the  while  unfortunate  baby  would 
be  quite  as  pretty  and  twice  as  comfortable  in  plain 
muslin  and  lawn;  down  to  the  last  day  of  our  subjuga- 
tion to  fashion,  when  we  must  needs  be  carried  to  our 
permanent  repose  under  a  proper  amount  of  feathers, 
and  followed  by  a  customary  number  of  mourning 
coaches — after  being  coaxed  to  it — useless  luxury  ! 
by  a  satin-lined  coffin,  stuffed  pillow,  and  ornamented 
shroud. 

In  the  intermediate  stage,  marriage,  we  are  worse 
off  still,  because  the  world's  iron  hand  is  upon  us  at  a 
time  and  under  circumstances  when  we  can  most 
keenly  feel  its  grinding  weight. 

"  Do  you  think,"  said  a  young  lady  once  to  me, 
"  that  Henry  and,  I  ought  to  marry  upon  less  than 
four  hundred  a-year  ?" 

"  No  certainly,  my  dear ;  because  you  marry  for  so 
many  people's  benefit  besides  your  own.  How,  for 
instance,  could  your  acquaintance  bear  to  see  moreen 
curtains,  instead  of  the  blue-and-silver  damask  you 


Women  of  the  World.  211 

were  talking  of!  And  how  could  you  give  those 
charming  little  dinner-parties  which,  you  say,  are  in- 
dispensable to  one  in  your  position,  without  three  ser- 
vants or  a  boy  in  buttons  as  well  ?  Nay,  if  you  went 
into  society  at  all,  of  the  kind  you  now  keep,  a  fifth  of 
Henry's  annual  income  would  melt  away  in  dresses, 
bouquets,  and  white  kid-gloves.  No,  my  dear  girl,  I 
can  by  no  means  advise  you  to  marry  upon  less  than 
four  hundred  a-year." 

My  young  friend  looked  up,  a  little  doubtful  if  I 
were  in  jest  or  earnest ;  and  Mr.  Henry  gave  vent  to 
an  impatient  sigh.  I  thought — "  Poor  things  !"  for 
they  were  honestly  in  love,  and  there  was  no  earthly 
reason  why  they  should  not  marry.  How  many 
hundreds  more  are  thus  wasting  the  besfr  years  of 
their  life,  the  best  hopes  of  their  youth,  love,  home, 
usefulness,  energy — and  God  only  knows  how  much 
oesides — and  for  what?  Evening-parties,  dresses, 
and  gloves,  a  fine  house,  and  blue-and-silver  curtains ! 

Yet  a  woman  of  the  world  would  have  said  that 
this  couple  were  quite  right;  that  if  they  had  married 
and  lived  afterwards  with  the  careful  prudence  that 


212  Women  of  the  World. 

alone  would  have  been  possible  to  a  young  man  of 
Mr.  Henry's  independent  character,. they  must  infalli- 
bly have  gone  down  in  society,  have  dropped  out  of 
their  natural  circle,  to  begin  life — as  their  parents  did, 
— as  most  middle-class  parents  have  done, — narrowly 
and  humbly.  Though  without  much  fear  of  positive 
starvation,  they  must  have  given  up  many  luxuries, 
have  had  to  learn  and  practise  many  domestic  econo- 
mies which  probably  never  had  come  into  the  head 
of  either  the  lady  or  the  gentleman;  and  yet  love 
might  have  taught  them,  as  it  teaches  the  most 
ignorant.  They  would  undoubtedly  have  had  to  live, 
for  the  next  few  years  at  least,  not  for  society  at  large, 
but  for  their  own  two  selves  and  their  immediate 
connexions. 

And  very  likely  Henry  would  have  done  it,  for  a 
young  fellow  in  love  will  do  mightily  heroic  things ; 
some,  especially  hard- worked  professional  men,  being 
weak  enough  to  believe  that  a  snug  fire-side,  where  a 
cheerful-faced  little  wife  has  warmed  his  slippers  and 
sits  pouring  out  his  tea — even  if  obliged  to  make 
sundry  intermediate  rushes  up-stairs  to  quiet  some- 


Women  of  the  World.  213 

thing  which  obstinately  refuses  to  go  to  sleep — is 
preferable  to  a  handsome  solitary  club-dinner,  a  wine 
and-cigar  party,  or  a  ball,  at  which  he  revels  till  3 
A.M.  in  the  smiles  of  a  tarlatane  angel,  whom  he  may 
ask  to  waltz  ad  libitum,  but  dare  not  for  his  life — 01 
his  honour,  which  is  dearer — ask  any  other  .question, 
until  he  has  got  grey  hairs  and  a  thousand  a-year. 
Dares  not,  for  the  worldly  fathers,  the  still  more 
worldly  mothers,  nay,  the  young  daughters  them- 
selves, whose  hearts,  under  their  innocent  muslins, 
are  slowly  hardening  into  those  of  premature  women 
of  the  world,  would  stand  aghast  at  the  idea;  "  Love 
in  a  cottage" — such  an  out-of-date,  absurdly  romantic, 
preposterous  thing!  Which  it  decidedly  is — for 
people  who  bring  to  the  said  cottage  the  expectations 
and  necessities  of  Hyde  Park  Gardens  or  Belgrave 
Square. 

Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  hardly  possible  to 
over-calculate  the  evils  accruing  to  individuals  and  to 
society  in  general  from  this  custom,  gradually  increas- 
ing,  of  late  and  ultra-prudent  marriages.  Parents 
bring  up  their  daughters  in  luxurious  homes,  expect- 


214  Women  of  the  World. 

ing  and  exacting  that  the  home  to  which  they  transfer 
them  should  be  of  almost  equal  ease ;  forgetting  how 
next  to  impossible  it  is  for  such  a  home  to  be  offered 
by  any  young  man  of  the  present  generation,  who 
has  to  work  his  way  like  his  father  before  him. 
V  Daughters,  accustomed  to  a  life  of  ease  and  laziness, 
are  early  taught  to  check  every  tendency  towards  "  a 
romantic  attachment " — the  insane  folly  of  loving  a 
man  for  what  he  is,  rather  than  for  what  he  has  got ; 
of  being  content  to  fight  the  worldly  battle  hand-in- 
hand — with  a  hand  that  is  worth  clasping,  rather 
than  settle  down  in  comfortable  sloth,  protected  and 
provided  for  in  all  external  things.  Young  men  .  .  . 
But  words  fail  to  trace  the  lot  of  enforced  bachelor- 
hood, hardest  when  its  hardship  ceases  to  be  con- 
sciously felt.  An  unmarried  woman,  if  a  good 
woman,  can  always  make  herself  happy ;  find  innu- 
merable duties,  interests,  amusements;  live  a  pure, 
cheerful,  and  useful  life.  So  can  some  men — but 
very,  very  few. 

Scarcely  any  sight  is  more  pitiable  than  a  young 
man  who  has  drifted  on  to  past  thirty,  without  home 


Women  of  the  World.  2 1  <; 

or  near  kindred;  with  just  income  enough  to  keep 
him  respectably  in  the  position  which  he  supposes 
himself  bound  to  maintain,  and  to  supply  him  with 
the  various  small  luxuries — such  as  thirty  guineas 
per  annum  in  cigars,  &c. — which  have  become  habi- 
tual to  him.  Like  his  fellow-mortals,  he  is  liable 
enough  to  the  unlucky  weakness  of  falling  in  love, 
now  and  then;  but  he  somehow  manages  to  extin- 
guish the  passion  before  it  gets  fairly  alight;  know- 
ing he  can  no  more  venture  to  ask  a  girl  in  his  own 
sphere  to  marry  him,  or  be  engaged  to  him,  than  he 
can  coax  the  planet  Venus  out  of  her  golden  west 
into  the  dirty,  gloomy,  two-pair-back  where  his  laun- 
dress cheats  him,  and  his  landlady  abuses  him : 
whence,  perhaps,  he  occasionally  emerges  gloriously, 
all  studs  and  white  necktie — to  assist  at  some  young 
beauty's  wedding,  where  he  feels  in  his  heart  he  might 
once  have  been  the  happy  bridegroom — if  from  his 
silence  she  had  not  been  driven  to  go  desperately  and 
sell  herself  to  the  old  fool  opposite,  and  is  fast  becom- 
ing, nay,  is  already  become,  a  fool's  clever  mate — a 
mere  woman  of  the  world.  And  he — what  a  noble 


216  Women  of  the  World. 

ideal  he  has  gained  of  our  sex,  from  this  and  other 
similar  experiences !  with  what  truth  of  emotion  will 
he  repeat,  as  he  gives  the  toast  of  "  The  bridemaids," 
the  hackneyed  quotation  about  pain  and  sorrow 
wringing  the  brow,  and  smile  half-adoringly,  half- 
pathetically,  at  the  "ministering  angels"  who  titter 
around  him.  They,  charming  innocents !  will  doubt- 
less go  home  avouching  "What  a  delightful  person  is 
Mr.  So-and-so.  I  wonder  he  never  gets  married." 
While  Mr.  So-and-So  also  goes  home,  sardonically 
minded,  to  his  dull  lodgings,  his  book  and  his  cigar, 
or — he  best  knows  where.  And  in  the  slow  process 
of  inevitable  deterioration,  by  forty  he  learns  to  think 
matrimony  a  decided  humbug ;  and  hugs  himself  in 
the  conclusion  that  a  virtuous,  high-minded,  and  dis- 
interested woman,  if  existing  at  all,  exists  as  a  mere 
lusus  naturce—not  to  be  met  with  by  mortal  man 
now-a-days.  Believing  his  feeling  with  a  grunt — 
half-sigh,  half-sneer — he  dresses  and  goes  to  the  opera 
— or  the  ballet,  at  all  events — or  settles  himself  on  the 
'sofa  to  a  French  novel,  and  ends  by  firmly  believing 
us  women  to  be — what  we  are  painted  there ! 


Women  of  the  World.  217 

Good  God! — the  exclamation  is  too  solemn  to 
be  profane — if  this  state  of  things  be  true,  and  it  is 
true,  and  I  have  barely  touched  the  outer  surface  of 
its  unfathomably  horrible  truth — what  will  the  next 
generation  come  to?  What  will  they  be — those 
unborn  millions  who  are  to  grow  up  into  our  men 
and  our  women?  The  possible  result,  even  in  a 
practical,  to  say  nothing  of  a  moral  light,  is  awful 
to  think  upon. 

Can  it  not  be  averted  ?  Can  we  not — since,  while 
the  power  of  the  world  is  with  men,  the  influence  lies 
with  women — can  we  not  bring  up  our  girls  more 
usefully  and  less  showily— less  dependent  on  luxury 
and  wealth?  Can  we  not  teach  them  from  babyhood 
that  to  labour  is  a  higher  thing  than  merely  to  enjoy ; 
that  even  enjoyment  itself  is  never  so  sweet  as  when 
it  has  been  earned?  Can  we  not  put  into  their 
minds,  whatever  be  their  station,  principles  of  truth, 
simplicity  of  taste,  helpfulness,  hatred  of  waste ,  and, 
these  being  firmly  rooted,  trust  to  their  blossoming 
up  in  whatever  destiny  the  young  maiden  may  be 

called  to?     We  should  not  then  have  to  witness  the 

10 


218  Women  of  the  World. 

terrors  that  beset  dying  beds  when  a  family  of  girla 
will  be  left  unprovided  for ;  nor  the  angry  shame 
when  some  thoughtless  young  pair  commit  matri- 
mony, and  rush  ignorantly  into  debt,  poverty,  and 
disgrace,  from  which— -facilis  descensus  Averni — all  the 
efforts  of  too-late  compassionate  relatives  can  never 
altogether  raise  them. 

Nevertheless — and  I  risk  this  declaration  without 
fear  of  its  causing  a  general  rush  to  the  register-offices, 
or  the  publication,  at  every  out-of-the-way  church  in 
the  three  kingdoms,  of  surreptitious  bans  between  all 
the  under-aged  simpletons  who  choose  to  fly  in  the 
face  of  Providence  by  marrying  upon 

"  Nothing  a  week,  and  that  uncertain — very  I" 

— nevertheless,  taking  life  as  a  whole,  believing  that 
it  consists  not  in  what  we  have,  but  in  our  power  of 
enjoying  the  same  ;  that  there  are  in  it  things  nobler 
and  dearer  than  ease,  plenty,  or  freedom  frcm  care — - 
nay,  even  than  existence  itself;  surely  it  is  not 
Quixotism,  but  common-sense  and  Christianity,  to 


Women  of  the  World.  219 

protest  that  love  is  better  than  outside  show,  labour 
than  indolence,  virtue  than  mere  respectability. 
Truly,  in  this  present  day — putting  aside  those  cases 
Avhere  duty  and  justice  have  claims  higher  than 
cither  love  or  happiness — there  is  many  an  instance 
ef  cowardly  selfishness,  weakness,  and  falsehood,  com- 
mitted by  young  people  of  both  sexes,  under  the 
names  of  prudence,  honourable  feeling,  or  obedience 
to  parents ;  there  is  many  an  act,  petted  under  the 
name  of  a  virtue,  which  is  a  much  blacker  crime  be- 
fore God,  and  of  far  more  fatal  result  to  society  at 
large,  than  the  worst  of  these  so-called  improvident 
marriages. 

Strange  how  much  people  will  sacrifice — ay,  even 
women  will — to  this  Moloch  of  the  world !  It  re- 
minds me  of  an  infantile  worship,  which  a  certain 
friend  of  mine  confessed  to  have  instituted,  and  offici- 
ated as  high-priestess  of,  at  the  age  of  three-and-a-half. 
She  used  to  collect  from  her  own  store,  and  levy  from 
unwilling  co-idolaters,  all  sorts  of  childish  dainties, 
together  with  turnips,  apple-parings,  &c.,  and  lay 
them  in  a  remote  corner  of  the  farmyard,  as  ?n  offer- 


22O  Women  of  the  World. 

ing  to  a  mysterious  invisible  being  called  Dor,  whc 
came  in  the  night  and  feasted  thereon — at  least,  the 
sacrifice  was  always  gone  the  next  morning.  A 
pious  relative,  finding  her  out,  stopped  with  great 
horror  the  proceedings  of  this  earnest  little  heathen  ; 
but  for  years  after,  nothing  would  have  persuaded  my 
deluded  young  friend  that  the  awful  Dor  was,  in  fact, 
only  a  chance-wind,  a  hen  and  her  chickens,  or  a 
hungry  old  sow.  So,  often,  it  is  not  till  half  a  life- 
time has  been  expended  on  this  thankless  service,  that 
we  come  to  find  out — if  we  ever  do  find  out — that 
the  invisible  Daimon  who  swallows  up  the  best  of 
our  good  things — time,  ease,  wealth,  money,  comfort, 
peace,  and  well  if  no  more  than  these — is,  after  all,  a 
combination  of  the  merest  accidents,  or  perhaps  one 
individual  brute  beast. 

Yet,  there  is  a  fascination,  hard  to  account  for,  but 
idle  to  gainsay,  in  this  miserable  Eleusinia,  this  blind 
worship  of  a  self-invented  god.  Who  does  not  know 
the  story  of  the  wise  old  nanny-goat,  which  painted  to 
her  dear  daughter  that  horrible  wild  beast,  the  leopard, 
giving  him  every  conceivable  ugliness,  a  ghastly  wide 


Women  of  the  World.  221 

mouth  and  fiery  eyes ;  so  that  when  the  fair  Miss  Kid 
saw  a  beautiful  animal  with  shiny  spotted  skin  and 
graceful  motions,  sporting  innocently  after  his  own 
tail  in  the  forest  shadow,  how  could  she  ever  identify 
him  with  the  portrait  her  mother  drew  ?  What  could 
she  do,,  but  approach,  and  wonder,  and  admire,  then 
fall  right  into  his  clutches,  and  have  her  poor  little 
bones  crunched  between  his  dazzling  jaws?  Would 
not  many  a  mother  do  well  in  laying  to  heart  this  old 
fable? 

Yes,  the  world  is  doubtless  very  pleasant  in  its 
way.  Delicious,  almost  to  deliriousness,  is  a  young 
girl's  first  step  into  the  enchanted  circle  called  "  good 
society;"  to  feel  herself  in  her  best  attire  and  best 
looks,  charming  and  charmed,  for  the  behoof  of  the 
entire  company ;  or,  as  it  usually  soon  comes  to,  poor 
little  fool  I  for  the  sake  of  one  particular  person 
therein.  And  for  a  long  time  after,  though  the  first 
magic  of  the  cup  is  gone,  though  it  intoxicates  rather 
than  exhilarates,  it  is  by  no  means  the  poison-cup  that 
frigid  moralists  would  make  us  believe.  It  has  a  lit- 
tle of  the  narcotic ;  and  the  young  woman  begins  to 


222  Women  of  the  World. 

take  it  as  such,  feeling  rather  ashamed  of  Lerself  for 
BO  doing ;  and,  like  all  opiates,  it  leaves  a  slight  bit- 
terness in  the  mouth.  But  what  of  that  ? 

Now  and  then  our  young  lady  wonders,  during 
"  slow "  evening-parties  and  prosy  morning-calls, 
whether  her  whistle  is  worth  quite  as  much  as  she 
has  daily  to  pay  for  it — whether  the  agreeable  circles 
in  which  she  moves  are  not,  if  they  would  but  avow  it, 
for  the  chief  part  of  the  time  that  they  spend  together, 
a  very  great  bore  to  themselves  and  to  one  another — 
whether,  after  all,  one  handful  of  the  salt  of  common- 
sense  would  not  purify  society  as'  well  as  a  bushel  of 
idle  ceremonies,  and  one  ounce  of  kind  feeling,  tact, 
and  thoughtfulness  for  others,  be  worth  a  cart-load  of 
ponderous  etiquette.'  And  perhaps  she  sets  to  work 
on  this  grand,  new,  and  original  system  of  hers,  which 
every  young  heart  thinks  it  is  the  very  first  to  discover 
and  practise 


"  Like  one  who  tries  in  little  boat 
To  tug  to  him  the  ship  afloat." 

Most  likely  she  fails — fails  totally,  angrily,  miserably ; 


Women  of  the  World.  223 

only  gets  herself  misjudged  and  laughed  at,  and 
resolves  no  more  to  remodel  the  world — which  may 
be  a  wise  determination ;  or  settles  into  stolid  indiffer- 
ence, and  believes  that,  after  all,  right  and  wrong  do 
not  much  matter ;  it  will  all  be  the  same  a  hundred 
years  hence  :  so  drops  slowly  into  the  current,  and  is 
drifted  with  the  rest,  along,  along — whither  ? 

Or  else,  having  just  penetration  enough  left  to  dis- 
tinguish a  truth  from  its  eidolon,  its  doppelg anger, 
which  almost  always  walks  alongside  of  it,  and  mim- 
ics it,  in  this  strange  world  of  ours,  she  gradually  per- 
ceives the  sense,  beauty,  and  fitness  which  may  be 
traced  under  the  most  exaggerated  of  forms  and  cus- 
toms. She  sees  also  that  these 

"  Nice  customs  courtesy  to  great  kings," 

as  saith  Henry  of  England  when  he  kisses  his  French 
Katherine  ;  and  that  any  woman  is  unworthy  of  the 
just  empery  of  her  sex  when  she  gives  up  to  either  fash- 
ion or  ceremony  her  common-sense,  comfort,  or  good 
taste  :  when,  for  instance,  she  condescends  to  make  of 


224  Women  of  the  World. 

herself  a  silk-draped  walking  butter-tub,  or  a 
female 

"  Whose  head 
Does  grow  beneath  her  shoulders ;" 

when  she  suffers  herself  to  waste  hour  after  hour,  day 
after  day,  year  after  year,  in  the  company  of  frivolous 
folk,  who  she  can  do  no  good  to,  and  receive  no 
good  from,  and  whom,  she  is  fully  aware,  if  she  drop- 
ped out  of  their  smiling  circle  to-morrow,  to  die  in  a 
ditch,  in  the  hospital  close  by,  or  were  even  to  create 
a  temporary  sensation  by  jumping  from  "Waterloo 
Bridge,  would  merely  remark :  "Dear  me,  how  shock- 
ing !  Who  would  have  thought  it  ? — "Well,  as  I  was 
saying  .  .  .  ." 

No  doubt,  this  conviction,  when  it  fairly  breaks 
upon  her,  strikes  her  poor  weakened  eyes  with  a  pain- 
ful glare,  which  throws  into  harder  outline  than  is 
natural  the  cruel  angles  of  this  would-be  palace — that 
for  a  time  seems  to  her  little  better  than  a  grim  dun* 
geon,  from  which  she  only  seeks  to  escape — 

"  Anywhere,  anywhere,  out  of  the  world." 


*  Women  of  the  World.  225 

This  is  the  crisis  of  her  life.  She  either  ends  by  % 
tacit,  hopeless  acquiescence  in  what  she  both  despises 
and  disbelieves,  or  herself  sinking  to  their  level, 
accepts  them  as  realities  after  all.  Or  else,  by  a  des- 
perate struggle,  she  creeps  from  chaos  into  order,  from 
darkness  into  clear  day,  learns  slowly  and  temperately 
to  distinguish  things,  and  people,  in  their  true  colours 
and  natural  forms ;  taking  them  just  as  they  are,  no 
better  and  no  worse,  and  trying  to  make  the  best  of 
them :  to  use  the  world,  in  short,  as  its  Maker  doth — • 
after  the  example  of  Him  who  himself  said  that  the 
tares  and  wheat  must  "  grow  together  until  the  har- 
vest." 

Such  an  one — and  I  ask  those  of  my  sex  who  read 
this  page,  if  I  have  not  painted  her  according  to 
nature?  if  many  weary,  dissatisfied  hearts,  beating 
heavily  with  pulses  they  do  not  understand,  will  not 
confess,  that  in  some  poor  way  I  have  spoken  out 
their  already  half-recognised  feelings? — such  an  one 
will  escape  that  end  to  which  all  must  come  who  fix 
their  pleasures  alone  in  this  life:  the  woman  of 

fashion,  after  the  pattern  of  Mrs.  Skewton  and  Lady 

10* 


?.26  Women  of  the  World.  * 

Kew:  the  woman  of  "mind,"  fluttering  her  faded 
plumage  in  the  face  of  a  new  generation,  which 
recognises  her  not,  or  recognises  only  to  make  game 
of  her:  or  the  ordinary  woman  of  the  world. 

This  latter — in  her  day  of  decline,  who  has  not  en- 
countered her  some  time  or  another  ?  Dependent  on 
the  pity  of  those  who  remember  what  she  was,  or 
might  have  been;  invited  out,  because  there  is  a 
certain  agreeableness  about  her  still,  and  because, 
"poor  thing,  she  likes  a  little  society;"  yet  made 
irritable  by  a  perpetual  need  of  excitement,  which 
drives  her  to  prefer  anybody's  company  to  her  own. 
Painfully  jealous  over  every  fragment  of  the  affection 
which  she  herself  has  never  disinterestedly  shown  to 
anybody,  but  has  spread  it,  like  school  bread  and 
butter,  over  so  wide  a  surface,  that  tastelessness  is  the 
natural  consequence  of  its  extreme  tenuity. 

Friendships  she  has  none :  she  never  either  desired 
or  deserved  them.  In  all  her  long  career,  she  has 
never  been  able  to  take  root  in  any  human  heart.  As 
for  the  Heart  Divine,  the  chances  are  that  she  has 
never  once  sought  it,  or  believed  in  it.  She  has 


Women  of  the  World.  227 

believed  in  a  cushioned  pew,  in  a  velvet  prayer-book 
with,  a  gilt  cross  on  tlie  back;  in  certain  religious 
thoughts,  words,  and  deeds,  proper  for  Sundays  and 
holidays,  and  possibly  suitable  for  that  "convenient 
season"  when  she  means  to  "make  her  peace  with 
Heaven,"  as  the  judge  tells  the  criminal  who  is 
"  turned  off"  to  seek  in  another  existence  that  hope 
which  man  denies.  But  for  all  else  her  soul — contra- 
distinguished from  her  intellect,  which  may  be  vivid 
and  brilliant  still — is  a  blank,  a  darkness,  a  death  in 
life. 

And  yet  the  woman  of  the  world  will  one  day  lave 
to  die  ! 

We  can  but  leave  her  to  Infinite  Mercy  then. 


CHAPTER  X. 

HAPPY  AND  UNHAPPY  WOMEN. 

1  GIVE  fair  warning  that  this  is  likely  to  be  a  "  senti- 
mental" chapter.  Those  who  object  to  the  same,  and 
complain  that  these  "  Thoughts"  are  "  not  practical," 
had  better  pass  it  over  at  once,  since  it  treats  of 
things  essentially  unpractical,  impossible  to  be 
weighed  and  measured,  handled  and  analysed,  yet  as 
real  in  themselves  as  the  air  we  breathe  and  the  sun- 
shine we  delight  in — things  wholly  intangible,  yet  the 
very  essence  and  necessity  of  our  lives. 

Happiness!  Can  any  human  being  undertake  to 
define  it  for  another  ?  Yarious  last-century  poets  have 
indulged  in  "  Odes"  to  it,  and  good  Mrs.  Barbauld 
wrote  a  "  Search"  after  it — a  most  correct,  elegantly 
phrased,  and  genteel  little  drama,  which,  the  dramatis 
personce  being  all  females,  and  not  a  bit  of  love  in  the 
whole,  is,  I  believe,  still  acted  in  old-fashioned 


Happy  and  Unhappy  Women.        229 

boarding-schools,  with,  great  eclat.  The  plot,  if  I 
remember  right,  consists  of  an  elderly  lady's  leading 
four  or  five  younger  ones  on  the  immemorial  search, 
through  a  good  many  very  long  speeches ;  but  whether 
they  ever  found  happiness,  or  what  it  was  like  when 
found,  I  really  have  not  the  least  recollection. 

Let  us  hope  that  excellent  Mrs.  Barbauld  is  one  of 
the  very  few  who  dare  to  venture  upon  even  the  pri- 
mary question — What  is  Happiness  ?  Perhaps,  poor 
dear  woman !  she  is  better  able  to  answer  it  now. 

I  fear,  the  inevitable  conclusion  we  must  all  come 
to  is,  that  in  this  world  happiness  is  quite  indefinable. 
"We  can  no  more  grasp  it  than  we  can  grasp  the  sun 
in  the  sky  or  the  moon  in  the  water.  We  can  feel  it 
interpenetrating  our  whole  being  with  warmth  and 
strength ;  we  can  see  it  in  a  pale  reflection  shining 
elsewhere ;  or  in  its  total  absence,  we,  walking  in 
darkness,  learn  to  appreciate  what  it  is  by  what  it  is 
not.  But  I  doubt  whether  any  woman  ever  craved 
for  it,  philosophised  over  it,  or — pardon,  shade  of  Bar- 
bauld!— commenced  the  systematic  search  after  it, 
and  ever  attained  her  end.  For  happiness  is  not  an 


230         Happy  and  Unhappy  Women. 

end — it  is  only  a  means,  an  adjunct,  a  consequence, 
The  Omnipotent  Himself  could  never  be  supposed  b^y 
any,  save  those  who  out  of  their  own  human  selfish- 
ness construct  the  attributes  of  Divinity,  to  be  ab- 
sorbed throughout  eternity  in  the  contemplation  of 
His  own  ineffable  bliss,  were  it  not  identical  with  His 
ineffable  goodness  and  love. 

Therefore,  whosoever  starts  with  "  to  be  happy"  as 
the  summum  lonum  of  existence,  will  assuredly  find 
out  she  has  made  as  great  a  mistake  as  when  in  her 
babyhood  she  cried,  as  most  of  us  do,  for  the  moon, 
which  we  cannot  get  for  all  our  crying.  And  yet  it 
is  a  very  good  moon,  notwithstanding ;  a  real  moon, 
too,  who  will  help  us  to  many  a  poetical  dream,  light 
us  in  many  a  lovers'  walk,  till  she  shine  over  the 
grass  of  our  graves  upon  a  new  generation  ready  to 
follow  upon  the  immemorial  quest.  Which,  like  the 
quest  of  the  Sangreal,  is  only  possible  to  pure  hearts, 
although  the  very  purest  can  never  fully  attain  it,  ex- 
cept, like  Sir  Galahad,  through  the  gates  of  the  Hoty 
City — the  New  Jerusalem. 

Happy  and  unhappy  women — the  adjectives  being 


Happy  and  Unhappy  Women.        231 

applied  less  with  reference  to  circumstances  than  cha 
racter,  which  is  the  only  mode  of  judgment  possible 
— to  judge  them  and  discourse  of  them  is  a  very 
difficult  matter  at  best.  Yet  I  am  afraid  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  there  is  a  large  average  of  unhappiness 
existent  among  women :  not  merely  unhappiness  of 
circumstances,  but  unhappiness  of  soul — a  state  of 
being  often  as  unaccountable  as  it  is  irrational,  finding 
vent  in  those  innumerable  faults  of  temper  and  dis- 
position which  arise  from  no  inherent  vice,  but  merely 
because  the  individual  is  not  happy. 

Possibly,  women  more  than  men  are  liable  to  this 
dreary  mental  eclipse — neither  daylight  nor  darkness. 
A  man  will  go  poetically  wretched  or  morbidly  mis- 
anthropic, or  any  great  misfortune  will  overthrow 
him  entirely,  drive  him  to  insanity,  lure  him  to  slip 
out  of  life  through  the  terrible  by-road  of  suicide ; 
but  he  rarely  drags  on  existence  from  year  to  year, 
with  "  nerves,"  "  low  spirits,"  and  the  various  mala- 
dies of  mind  and  temper  that  make  many  women  a 
torment  to  themselves,  and  a  burden  to  al]  connected 
with  them. 


232        Happy  and  Unhappy  Women. 

"Why  is  this  ?  and  is  it  inevitable  ?  Any  one  who 
could  in  the  smallest  degree  answer  this  question, 
would  be  doing  something  to  the  lessening  of  a  great 
evil — greater  than  many  other  evils  which,  being 
social  and  practical,  show 'more  largely  on  the  aggre- 
gate census  of  female  woe. 

Most  assuredly,  however  unpoetical  may  be  such  a 
view  of  the  matter,  the  origin  of  a  great  deal  of 
unhappiness  is  physical  disease  ;  or  rather,  the  loss  of 
that  healthy  condition  of  body,  which  in  the  present 
state  of  civilisation,  so  far  removed  from  a  state  of 
nature,  can  only  be  kept  up  in  any  individual  by  the 
knowledge  and  practice  of  the  ordinary  laws  of 
hygiene — generally  the  very  last  knowledge  that 
women  seem  to  have.  The  daily  necessities  of  water, 
fresh  air,  proper  clothing,  food,  and  sleep,  with  the 
due  regulation  of  each  of  these,  without  which  no 
human  being  can  expect  to  live  healthily  or  happily, 
are  matters  in  which  the  only  excuse  for  lamentable 
neglect  is  still  more  lamentable  ignorance. 

An  ignorance  the  worse,  because  it  is  generally 
quite  unacknowledged.  If  you  tell  a  young  girl  that 


Happy  and  Unhappy  Women.        233 

water,  the  colder  the  better,  is  essential  to  every  pore 
of  her  delicate  skin  every  morning;  that  moderate 
out-door  exercise,  and  regularity  in  eating,  sleeping, 
employment,  and  amusement,  are  to  her  a  daily  neces- 
sity ;  that  she  should  make  it  a  part  of  her  education 
to  acquire  a  certain  amount  of  current  information  on 
sanitary  science,  and  especially  on  the  laws  of  her 
own  being,  physical  and  mental:  tell  her  this,  and 
the  chances  are  she  will  stare  at  you  uncomprehend- 
ingly,  or  be  shocked,  as  if  you  were  saying  to  her 
something  "improper,"  or  answer  flippantly:  "Oh, 
yes ;  I  know  all  that." 

But  of  what  use  is  the  knowledge  ? — when  she  lies 
in  bed  till  ten  o'clock,  and  sits  up  till  any  hour  the  next 
morning ;  eats  all  manner  of  food  at  all  manner  of 
irregular  intervals;  is  horrified  at  leaving  her  bed- 
room window  two  inches  open,  or  at  being  caught  in 
a  slight  shower ;  yet  will  cower  all  day  over  the  fire 
in  a  high  woollen  dress,  and  put  on  a  low  muslin  one 
in  the  evening.  "When  she  wears  all  winter  thin 
boots,  gossamer  stockings,  a  gown  open  at  the  chest 
and  arms,  and  a  loose  mantle  that  every  wind  blows 


234        Happy  and  Unhappy  Women. 

under,  yet  wonders  that  she  always  has  a  cold !— and 
weighs  herself  down  in  summer-time  with  four  petti- 
coats heaped  one  over  the  other,  yet  is  quite  astonished 
that  she  gets  hot  and  tired  so  soon !  Truly  any  sen- 
sible, old-fashioned  body,  who  knows  how  much  .the 
health,  happiness,  and  general  well-being  of  this 
generation — and,  alas!  not  this  generation  alone — 
depend  upon  these  charming,  loveable,  fascinating 
young  fools,  cannot  fail  to  be  "  aggravated"  by  them 
every  day. 

However  humiliating  the  fact  may  be  to  those  po- 
etical theorists  who,  in  spite  of  all  the  laws  of  nature, 
wish  to  make  the  soul  entirely  independent  of  the 
body — forgetting,  that  if  so,  its  temporary  probation 
in  the  body  at  all,  would  have  been  quite  unnecessa- 
ry— I  repeat,  there  can  be  no  really  sanitary  state  of 
mind  without  a  similar  condition  of  body ;  and  that 
one  of  the  first  requisites  of  happiness  is  good  health. 
But  as  this  is  not  meant  to  be  an  essay  on  domestic 
hygiene,  I  had  better  here  leave  the  subject. 

Its  corresponding  phase  opens  a  gate  of  misery  so 
wide  that  one  almost  shrinks  from  entering  it.  Inn- 


Happy  and  Unhappy  Women.        235 

nite,  past  human  counting  or  judging,  are  the  causes 
of  mental  unhappiness.  Many  of  them  spring  from  a 
real  foundation,  of  sorrows  varied  beyond  all  mea- 
suring or  reasoning  upon :  of  these,  I  do  not  attempt 
to  speak,  for  words  would  be  idle  and  presumptuous ; 
I  only  speak  of  that  frame  of  mind — sometimes  left 
behind  by  a  great  trouble,  sometimes  arising  from 
troubles  purely  imaginary — which  is  called  "  an  un- 
happy disposition." 

Its  root  of  pain  is  manifold;  but  with  women, 
undoubtedly  can  be  oftenest  traced  to  something  con- 
nected with  the  affections :  not  merely  the  passion 
called  par  excellence  love,  but  the  entire  range  of  per- 
sonal sympathies  and  attachments,  out  of  which  we 
draw  the  sweetness  and  bitterness  of  the  best  part  of 
our  lives.  If  otherwise — if,  as  the  phrase  goes,  an 
individual  happens  to  have  "  more  head  than  heart," 
she  may  be  a  very  clever,  agreeable  personage,  but 
she  is  not  properly  a  woman — not  the  creature  who, 
with  all  her  imperfections,  is  nearer  to  heaven  than 
man,  in  one  particular — she  "  loves  much."  And 
loving  is  so  frequently,  nay,  inevitably,  identical  with 


236        Happy  and  Unhappy  Women. 

suffering,  either  with,  or  for,  or  from,  the  object 
beloved,  that  we  need  not  go  further  to  find  the  cause 
of  the  many  anxious,  soured  faces,  and  irritable  tem- 
pers, that  we  meet  with  among  women. 

Charity  cannot  too  deeply  or  too  frequently  call,  to 
mind  how  very  difficult  it  is  to  be  good,  or  amiable, 
or  even  commonly  agreeable,  when  one  is  inwardly 
miserable.  This  fact  is  not  enough  recognised  by 
those  very  worthy  people  who  take  such  a  world  of 
pains  to  make  other  people  virtuous,  and  so  very 
little  to  make  them  happy.  They  sow  good  seed,  are 
everlastingly  weeding  and  watering,  give  it  every 
care  and  advantage  under  the  sun — except  sunshine 
— and  then  they  wonder  that  it  does  not  flower  1 

One  may  see  many  a  young  woman  who  has, 
outwardly  speaking,  "  everything  she  can  possibly 
want,"  absolutely  withering  in  the  atmosphere  of  a 
loveless  home,  exposed  to  those  small  ill-humours  by 
which  people  mean  no  harm — only  do  it ;  chilled  by 
reserve,  wounded  by  neglect,  or  worried  by  anxiety 
over  some  thoughtless  one,  who  might  so  easily  havo 
spared  her  it  all ;  safe  from  either  misfortune  or  ill- 


Happy  and  Unhappy  Women.         237 

treatment,  yet  harassed  daily  by  petty  pains  and 
unconscious  cruelties,  which  a  stranger  might  laugh 
at ;  and  she  laughs  herself  when  she  counts  them  up, 
they  are  so  very  small — yet  they  are  there. 

"  I  can  bear  anything,"  said  to  me  a  woman,  no 
longer  very  young  or  very  fascinating,  or  particularly 
clever,  who  had  gone  through  seas  of  sorrow,  yet 
whose  blue*  eyes  still  kept  the  dewiness  and  cheerful- 
ness of  their  youth ;  "I  can  bear  anything,  except 
unkindness." 

She  was  right.  There  are  numberless  cases  where 
gentle  creatures,  who  would  have  endured  bravely 
any  amount  of  real  trouble,  have  their  lives  frozen 
up  by  those  small  unkindnesses  which  copy-books 
avouch  to  be  "  a  great  offence  ;"  where  an  avalanche 
of  worldly  benefits,  an  act  of  undoubted  generosity, 
or  the  most  conscientious  administering  of  a  friendly 
rebuke,  has  had  its  good  effects  wholly  neutralised 
by  the  manner  in  which  it  was  done.  It  is  vain  to 
preach  to  people  unless  you  also  love  them — Chris- 
tianly  love  them  ;  it  is  not  the  smallest  use  to  try  to 
make  people  good,  unless  you  try  at  the  same  time — 


238        Happy  and  Unhappy  Women. 

and  they  feel  that  you  are  trying — to  make  them 
happy.  And  you  rarely  can  make  another  happy, 
unless  you  are  happy  yourself. 

Naming  the  affections  as  the  chief  source  of  unhap- 
piness  among  our  sex,  it  would  be  wrong  to  pass 
over  one  phase  of  them,  which  must  nevertheless  be 
touched  tenderly  and  delicately,  as  one  that  women 
instinctively  hide  out  of  sight  and  comment.  I  mean 
what  is  usually  termed  "  a  disappointment."  Alas  I 
— as  if  there  were  no  disappointments  but  those  of 
love !  and  yet,  until  men  and  women  are  made  differ- 
ently from  what  God  made  them,  it  must  always  be, 
from  its  very  secretness  and  inwardness,  the  sharpest 
of  all  pangs,  save  that  of  conscience. 

A  lost  love.  Deny  it  who  will,  ridicule  it,  treat  it 
as  mere  imagination  and  sentiment,  the  thing  is  and 
will  be;  and  women  do  suffer  therefrom,  in  all  its 
infinite  varieties:  loss  by  death,  by  faithlessness  or 
unworthiness,  and  by  mistaken  or  unrequited  affec- 
tion. Of  these,  the  second  is  beyond  all  question  the 
worst.  There  is  in  death  a  consecration  which  lulls 
the  sharpest  personal  anguish  into  comparative  calm  ; 


Happy  and  Unhappy  Women.         239 

and  in  time  there  comes,  to  all  pure  and  religious 
natures,  that  sense  of  total  possession  of  the  object? 
beloved,  which  death  alone  gives — that  faith,  which 
is  content  to  see  them  safe  landed  out  of  the  troubles 
of  this  changeful  life,  into  the  life  everlasting.  And 
an  attachment  which  has  always  been  on  one  side 
only,  has  a  certain  incompleteness  which  prevents  its 
ever  knowing  the  full  agony  of  having  and  losing, 
while  at  the  same  time  it  preserves  to  the  last  a 
dreamy  sanctity  which  sweetens  half  its  pain.  But 
to  have  loved  and  lost,  either  by  that  total  disen- 
chantment which  leaves  compassion  as  the  sole  sub- 
stitute for  love  which  can  exist  no  more,  or  by  the 
slow  torment  which  is  obliged  to  let  go  day  by  day 
all  that  constitutes  the  diviner  part  of  love — namely, 
reverence,  belief,  and  trust,  yet  clings  desperately  to 
the  only  thing  left  it,  a  long-suffering  apologetic  ten- 
derness— this  lot  is  probably  the  hardest  any  woman 
can  have  to  bear. 

"  What  is  good  for  a  bootless  bene  ? — 
And  she  made  answer,  Endless  sorrow." 


240        Happy  and  Unhappy  Women. 

No.  There  is  no  sorrow  under  heaven  which  is,  or 
ought  to  be,  endless.  To  believe  or  to  make  it  so,  is 
nn  insult  to  Heaven  itself.  Each  of  us  must  have 
known  more  than  one  instance  where  a  saintly  or  he- 
roic life  has  been  developed  from  what  at  first  seemed 
a  stroke  like  death  itself;  a  life  full  of  the  calmest 
and  truest  happiness — because  it  has  bent  itself  to  the 
Divine  will,  and  learned  the  best  of  all  lessons,  to 
endure.  But  how  that  lesson  is  learned,  through 
what  bitter  teaching,  hard  to  be  understood  or 
obeyed,  till  the  hand  of  the  Great  Teacher  is  recog- 
nised clearly  through  it  all,  is  a  subject  too  sacred  to 
be  entered  upon  here. 

It  is  a  curious  truth — and  yet  a  truth  forced  upon 
us  by  daily  observation — that  it  is  not  the  women 
who  have  suffered  most  who  are  the  unhappy  wo- 
men. A  state  of  permanent  unhappiness — not  the 
morbid,  half-cherished  melancholy  of  youth,  which 
generally  wears  off  with  wiser  years,  but  that  settled, 
incurable  discontent  and  dissatisfaction  with  all 
tilings  and  all  people,  which  we  see  in  some  women, 
is,  with  very  rare  exceptions,  at  once  the  index  and 


Happy  and  Unhappy  Women.         241 

the  exponent  of  a  thoroughly  selfish  character.  Nor 
can  it  be  too  early  impressed  upon  every  girl  that 
this  condition  of  mental  mal-aise,  whatever  be  its 
origin,  is  neither  a  poetical  nor  a  beautiful  thing,  but 
a  mere  disease,  and  as  such  ought  to  be  combated 
and  medicined  with  all  remedies  in  her  power,  prac- 
tical, corporeal,  and  spiritual.  For  though  it  is  folly 
to  suppose  that  happiness  is  a  matter  of  volition,  and 
that  we  can  make  ourselves  content  and  cheerful 
whenever  we  choose — a  theory  that  many  poor 
hypochondriacs  are  taunted  with  till  they  are  nigh 
driven  mad — yet,  on  the  other  hand,  no  sane  mind 
is  ever  left  without  the  power  of  self-discipline  and 
self-control  in  a  measure,  which  measure  increases  in 
proportion  as  it  is  exercised. 

Let  any  sufferer  be  once  convinced  that  she  has  this 
power — that  it  is  possible  by  careful  watch,  or,  better, 
by  substitution  of  subjects  and  occupations,  to  ab- 
stract her  mind  from  dwelling  on  some  predominant 
idea,  which  otherwise  runs  in  and  out  of  the  chambers 
of  the  brain  like  a  haunting  devil,  at  last  growing  into 

the  monomania  which,  philosophy  says,  every  human 

11 


242         Happy  'and  Unhappy  Women. 

being  is  affected  with,  on  some  one  particular  point — 
only,  happily,  he  does  not  know  it ;  only  let  her  try 
if  she  has  not,  with  regard  to  her  mental  constitution, 
the  same  faculty  which  would  prevent  her  from 
dancing  with  a  sprained  ankle,  or  imagining  that 
there  is  an  earthquake  because  her  own  head  is  spin- 
ning with  fever,  and  she  will  have  at  least  taken  the 
first  steps  towards  cure.  As  many  a  man  sits  weary 
ing  his  soul  out  by  trying  to  remedy  some  grand  flaw 
in  the  plan  of  society,  or  the  problem  of  the  universe, 
when  perhaps  the  chief  thing  wrong  is  his  own  liver, 
or  overtasked  brain;  so  many  a  woman  will  pine 
away  to  the  brink  of  the  grave  with  an  imaginary 
broken  heart,  or  sour  to  the  very  essence  of  vinegar 
on  account  of  everybody's  supposed  ill-usage  of  her, 
when  it  is  her  own  restless,  dissatisfied,  selfish  heart, 
which  makes  her  at  war  with  everybody. 

Would  that  women — and  men,  too,  but  that  their 
busier  and  more  active  lives  save  most  of  them  from 
it — could  be  taught  from  their  childhood  to  recognise 
as  an  evil  spirit  this  spirit  of  causeless  melancholy — 
this  demon  which  dwells  among  the  tombs,  and  yet, 


Happy  and  Unhappy  Women.        243 

which  first  shows  itself  in  such  a  charming  and  pic- 
turesque form,  that  we  hug  it  to  our  innocent  breasts, 
and  never  suspect  that  it  may  enter  in  and  dwell 
there  till  we  are  actually  "possessed ;"  cease  almost  to 
be  accountable  beings,  and  are  fitter  for  a  lunatic  asy- 
lum than  for  the  home-circle,  which,  be  it  ever  so 
bright  and  happy,  has  always,  from  the  inevitable 
misfortunes  of  life,  only  too  much  need  of  sunshine 
rather  than  shadow,  or  permanent  gloom. 

Oh,  if  such  women  did  but  know  what  comfort 
there  is  in  a  cheerful  spirit !  how  the  heart  leaps  up 
to  meet  a  sunshiny  face,  a  merry  tongue,  an  even  tem- 
per, and  a  heart  which  either  naturally,  or,  what  is 
better,  from  conscientious  principle,  has  learned  to 
take  all  things  on  their  bright  side,  believing  that  the 
Giver  of  life  being  all-perfect  Love,  the  best  offering 
we  can  make  to  Him  is  to  enjoy  to  the  full  what  He 
sends  of  good,  and  bear  what  He  allows  of  evil ! — • 
like  a  child  who,  when  once  it  thoroughly  believes  in 
its  father,  believes  in  all  his  dealings  with  it,  whethei 
it  understands  them  or  not. 

And  here,  if  the  subject  were  not  too  solemn  to  be 


244         Happy  and  Unhappy  Women. 

more  than  touched  upon, — yet  no  one  dare  avoid  it 
who  believes  that  there  are  no  such  distinctions  as 
*  secular"  and  "  religious,"  but  that  the  whole  earth 
with  all  therein  is,  not  only  on  Sundays,  but  all  days, 
continually  "the  LOKD'S" — I  will  put  it  to  most  peo 
pie's  experience,  which  is  better  than  a  hundred  ho- 
milies, whether,  though  they  may  have  known  sincere 
Christians  who,  from  various  causes,  were  not  alto- 
gether happy,  they  ever  knew  one  happy  person,  man 
or  woman,  who,  whatever  his  or  her  form  of  creed 
might  be,  was  not  in  heart,  and  speech,  and  daily  life, 
emphatically  a  follower  of  Christ — a  Christian  ? 

Among  the  many  secondary  influences  which  can 
be  employed  either  by  or  upon  a  naturally  anxious 
or  morbid  temperament,  there  is  none  so  ready  to 
hand,  or  so  wholesome,  as  that  one  incessantly  referred 
to  in  the  course  of  these  pages, — constant  employ- 
ment. A  very  large  number  of  women,  particularly 
young  women,  are  by  nature  constituted  so  exceed- 
ingly restless  of  mind,  or  with  such  a  strong  physical 
tendency  to  nervous  depression,  that  they  can  by  no 
possibility  keep  themselves  in  a  state  of  even  to! era- 


Happy  and  Unhappy  Women.       ^245 

ble  cheerfulness,  except  by  being  continually  occu- 
pied. At  what,  matters  little;  even  apparently  useless 
work  is  far  better  for  them  than  no  work  at  all.  To 
such  I  cannot  too  strongly  recommend  the  case  of 

"  Honest  John  Tomkins,  the  hedger  and  ditcher, 
Who,  though  he  was  poor,  didn't  want  to  be  richer," 

but  always  managed  to  keep  in  a  state  of  sublime  con- 
tent and  superabundant  gaiety ;  and  how  ? 

"  He  always  had  something  or  other  to  do, 
If  not  for  himself— for  his  neighbour." 

And  that  work  for  our  neighbour  is  perhaps  the 
most  useful  and  satisfactory  of  the  two,  because  it 
takes  us  out  of  ourselves;  which,  to  a  person  who 
has  not  a  happy  self  to  rest  in,  is  one  good  thing 
achieved :  1Jhis,  quite  apart  from  the  abstract  question 
of  benevolence,  or  the  notion  of  keeping  a  balance- 
sheet  with  Heaven  for  work  done  to  our  fellow-crea- 
tures— certainly  a  very  fruitless  recipe  for  happiness. 

The  sufferer,  on  waking  in  the  morning — that  cruel 
moment  when  any  incurable  pain  wakes  up  too, 


246        Happy  and  Unhappy  Women. 

sharply,  so  sharply !  and  the  burden  of  a  monotonous 
life  falls  down  upon  us,  or  rises  like  a  dead  blank  wall 
before  us,  making  us  turn  round  on  the  pillow  long- 
ing for  another  night,  instead  of  an  insupportable  day 
— should  rouse  herself  with  the  thought :  "  Now, 
what  have  I  got  to  do  to-day?"  (Mark,  not  to  enjoy 
or  to  suffer,  only  to  do.)  She  should  never  lie  down 
at  night  without  counting  up,  with  a  resolute,  uncom- 
promising, unexcusing  veracity,  "  How  much  have  I 
done  to-day?"  "I  can't  be  happy,"  she  may  ponder 
wearily ;  "  'tis  useless  trying — so  we'll  not  think  about 
it :  but  how  much  have  I  done  this  day  ?  how  much 
can  I  do  to-morrow?"  And  if  she  has  strength 
steadily  to  fulfil  this  manner  of  life,  it  will  be  strange 
if,  some  day,  the  faint,  involuntary  thrill  that  we  call 
"feeling  happy" — something  like  that  with  which  we 
stop  to  see  a  daisy  at  our  feet  in  January — does  not 
come  and  startle  into  vague,  mysterious  hope,  the  poor 
wondering  heart. 

Another  element  of  happiness,  incalculable  in  its 
influence  over  those  of  sensitive  and  delicate  physical 
organisation,  is  Order.  Any  one  who  has  just  quitted 


Happy  and  Unhappy  Women.         247 

a  disorderly  household,  where  the  rooms  are  untidy 
and  "littery,"  where  meals  take  place  at  any  houi 
and  in  any  fashion,  where  there  is  a  general  atmo- 
sphere of  noise,  confusion,  and  irregularity ;  of  doing 
things  at  all  times  and  seasons,  or  not  doing  anything 
in  particular  all  day  over ;  who,  emerging  from  this, 
drops  into  a  quiet,  busy,  regular  family,  where  each 
has  an  appointed  task,  and  does  it ;  where  the  day 
moves  on  smoothly,  subdivided  by  proper  seasons  of 
labour,  leisure,  food,  and  sleep — oh,  what  a  Paradise  it 
seems !  How  the  restless  or  anxious  spirit  nestles  down 
in  it,  and,  almost  without  volition,  falls  into  its  cheer- 
ful round,  recovering  tone,  and  calm,  and  strength. 

"  Order  is  Heaven's  first  law," 

and  a  mind  without  order  can  by  no  possibility  be 
either  a  healthy  or  a  happy  mind.  Therefore,  beyond 
all  sentimental  sympathy,  or  contemptuous  blame, 
.should  be  impressed  upon  all  women  inclined  to  me- 
lancholy, or  weighed  down  with  any  irremediable 
grief,  this  simple  advice — to  make  their  daily  round 
of  life  as  harmoniously  methodical  as  they  possibly 


248        Happy  and  Unhappy  Women. 

can ;  leaving  no  odd  hours,  scarcely  an  odd  ten 
minutes,  to  be  idle  and  dreary  in ;  and  by  means  of 
orderly-arranged,  light,  airy  rooms,  neat*  dress,  and 
every  pleasant  external  influence  that  is  attainable,  to 
leave  untried  none  of  these  secondary  means  which 
are  in  the  power  of  every  one  of  us,  for  our  own  bene- 
fit or  that  of  others,  and  the  importance  of  which  we 
never  know  until  we  have  proved  them. 

There  is  another  maxim — easy  to  give,  and  hard  to 
practise — Accustom  yourself  always  to  look  at  the 
bright  side  of  things,  and  never  make  a  fuss  abont 
trifles.  It  is  pitiful  to  see  what  mere  nothings  some 
women  will  worry  and  fret  over — lamenting  as  much 
over  an  ill-made  gown  as  others  do  over  a  lost  fortune ; 
how  some  people  we  can  always  depend  upon  for 
making  the  best,  instead  of  the  worst,  of  whatever 
happens,  thus  greatly  lessening  our  anxieties  for 
themselves  in  their  troubles ;  and,  oh !  how  infinitely 
comforting  when  we  bring  to  them  any  of  our  own. 
For  we  all  of  us  have — wretched,  indeed,  if  we  have 
not ! — some  friends,  or  friend,  to  whom  we  instinct- 
ively  carry  every  one  of  our  griefs  or  vexations,  as 


Happy  and  Unhappy  Women.        249 

sured  that,  if  any  one  can  help  us,  they  can  and  will ; 
while  with  others  we  as  instinctively  "  keep  ourselves 
to  ourselves,"  whether  sorrowing  or  rejoicing;  and 
many  more  there  are  whom  we  should  never  dream 
of  burdening  with  our  cares  at  all,  any  more  than  we 
would  think  of  putting  a  butterfly  in  harness. 

The  disposition  which  can  bear  trouble ;  which, 
while  passing  over  the  lesser  annoyances  of  life,  as 
unworthy  to  be  measured  in  life's  whole  sum,  can  yet 
meet  real  affliction  steadily,  struggle  with  it  while  re- 
sistance is  possible ;  conquered,  sit  down  patiently,  to 
let  the  storms  sweep  over ;  and  on  their  passing,  if 
they  pass,  rise  up,  and  go  on  its  way,  looking  up  to 
that  region  of  blue  calm  which  is  never  long  invisible 
to  the  pure  of  heart — this  is  the  blessedest  possession 
that  any  woman  can  have.  Better  than  a  house  full 
of  silver  and  gold,  better  than  beauty,  or  high  for- 
tunes, or  prosperous  and  satisfied  love. 

"While,  on  the  other  hand,  of  all  characters  not 
radically  bad,  there  is  none  more  useless  to  herself 
and  everybody  else,  who  inflicts  more  pain,  anxiety, 

and  gloom  on  those  around  her,  than  the  one  who  is 
11* 


250        Happy  and  Unhappy  Women. 

often  deprecatingly  or  apologetically  described  as 
being  "  of  an  unhappy  temperament."  You  may 
know  her  at  once  by  her  dull  or  vinegar  aspect,  her 
fidgety  ways,  her  proneness  to  take  the  hard  or  ill- 
natured  view  of  things  and  people.  Possibly  she.  is 
unmarried,  and  her  mocking  acquaintance  insult  wo- 
manhood by  setting  down  that  as  the  cause  of  her  dis- 
agreeableness.  Most  wicked  libel !  There  never  was 
an  unhappy  old  maid  yet  who  would  not  have  been 
equally  unhappy  as  a  wife — and  more  guilty,  for  she 
would  have  made  two  people  miserable  instead  of 
one.  It  needs  only  to  count  up  all  the  unhappy  wo- 
men one  knows — women  whom  one  would  not  change 
lots  with  for  the  riches  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba — to  see 
that  most  of  them  are  those  whom  fate  has  apparently 
loaded  with  benefits,  love,  home,  ease,  luxury,  leisure ; 
and  denied  only  the  vague  fine  something,  as  inde- 
scribable as  it  is  unattainable, — the  capacity  to  enjoy 
them  all. 

Unfortunate  ones  !  You  see  by  their  countenances 
that  they  never  know  what  it  is  to  enjoy.  That  thrill 
of  thankful  gladness,  oftenest  caused  by  little  things 


Happy  and  Unhappy  Women.        251 

— a  lovely  bit  of  nature,  a  holiday  after  long  toil,  a 
sudden  piece  of  good  news,  an  unexpected  face,  or  a 
letter  that  warms  one's  inmost  heart — to  them  is  alto- 
gether incomprehensible.  To  hear  one  of  them  in 
her  rampant  phase,  you  would  suppose  the  whole  ma- 
chinery of  the  universe,  down  even  to  the  weather, 
was  in  league  against  her  small  individuality ;  that 
everything  everybody  did,  or  said,  or  thought,  was 
with  one  sole  purpose — her  personal  injury.  And 
when  she  sinks  to  the  melancholy  mood,  though  your 
heart  may  bleed  for  her,  aware  how  horribly  real  are 
her  self-created  sufferings,  still  your  tenderness  sits 
uneasily,  more  as  a  duty  than  a  pleasure ;  and  you 
often  feel,  and  are  shocked  at  feeling,  that  her  pre- 
sence acts  upon  you  like  the  proverbial  wet-blanket, 
and  her  absence  gives  you  an  involuntary  sense  of 
relief. 

For,  though  we  may  pity  the  unhappy  ever  so 
lovingly  and  sincerely,  and  strive  with  all  our  power 
to  lift  them  out  of  their  grief, — when  they  hug  it,  and 
refuse  to  be  lifted  out  of  it,  patience  sometimes  fails. 
Human  life  is  so  full  of  pain,  that  once  past  the 


252        Happy  and  Unhappy  Women. 

yoTitliful  delusion  that  a  sad  countenance  is  interest 
ing,  and  an  incurable  woe  the  most  delightful  thing 
possible,  the  mind  instinctively  turns  where  it  can  get 
rest,  and  cheer,  and  sunshine.  And  the  friend  who 
can  bring  to  it  the  largest  portion  of  these  is,  of  a 
natural  necessity,  the  most  useful,  the  most  welcome, 
and  the  most  dear. 

The  "  happy  woman" — in  this  our  world,  which  is 
apparently  meant  to  be  the  road  to  perfection,  never 
its  goal — you  will  find  too  few  specimens  to  be  ever 
likely  to  mistake  her.  But  you  will  recognise  her 
presence  the  moment  she  crosses  your  path.  Not  by 
her  extreme  liveliness — lively  people  are  rarely  either 
happy  or  able  to  diffuse  happiness  ;  but  by  a  sense  of 
brightness  and  cheerfulness  that  enters  with  her — as 
an  evening  sunbeam  across  your  parlour  wall.  Like 
the  fairy  Order  in  the  nursery  tale,  §h.Q  takes  up  the 
tangled  threads  of  your  mind,  and  reduces  them  to  re- 
gularity, till  you  distinguish  a  clear  pattern  through  the 
ugly  maze.  She  may  be  neither  handsome,  nor  clever, 
nor  entertaining,  yet  somehow  she  makes  you  feel 
"  comfortable,"  because  she  is  so  comfortable  herself 


Happy  and  Unhappy  Women.         253 

She  shames  you  out  of  your  complainings,  for  she 
makes  none.  Yet,  mayhap,  since  it  is  the  divine  law 
that  we  should  all,  like  our  Master,  be  "  made  perfect 
through  suffering,"  you  are  fully  aware  that  she  has 
had  far  more  sorrow  than  ever  you  had ;  that  her 
daily  path,  had  you  to  tread  it,  would  be  to  you  as 
gloomy  and  full  of  pitfalls  as  to  her  it  is  safe  and 
bright.  She  may  have  even  less  than  the  medium 
lot  of  earthly  blessings,  yet  all  she  has  she  enjoys  to 
the  full ;  and  it  is  so  pleasant  to  see  any  one  enjoy  ! 
For  her  sorrows,  she  neither  hypocritically  denies, 
nor  proudly  smothers  them — she  simply  bears  them  ; 
therefore  they  come  to  her,  as  sorrows  were  meant  to 
come,  naturally  and  wholesomely,  and  passing  over, 
leave  her  full  of  compassion  for  all  who  may  have  to 
endure  the  same. 

Thus,  whatever  her  fate  may  be,  married  or  single, 
rich  or  poor,  in  health  or  sickness — though  a  cheerful 
spirit  has  twice  as  much  chance  of  health  as  a  melan- 
choly one — she  will  be  all  her  days  a  living  justifica- 
tion of  the  ways  of  Providence,  Who  makes  the 
light  as  well  as  the  darkness,  nay,  makes  the  light  out 


254        Happy  and  Unhappy  Women. 

of  the  darkness.  For  not  only  in  the  creation  of  a 
world,  but  in  that  which  is  equally  marvellous,  the 
birth  and  development  of  every  human  soul,  there  is 
a  divine  verity  symbolised  by  the  one  line, — 

'  And  GOD  said,  Let  there  be  light  1  and  there  was  light  /" 


CHAPTER  XL 

LOST  WOMEN. 

I  ENTER  on  this  subject  with  a  hesitation  strong 
enough  to  have  prevented  my  entering  on  it  at  all, 
did  I  not  believe  that  to  write  for  or  concerning 
women,  and  avoid  entirely  that  deplorable  phase  of 
womanhood  which,  in  country  cottages  as  in  city 
streets,  in  books,  newspapers,  and  daily  talk,  meets 
us  so  continually  that  no  young  girl  can  long  be  kept 
ignorant  of  it,  is  to  give  a  one-sided  and  garbled  view 
of  life,  which,  however  pretty  and  pleasant,  would  be 
false,  and  being  false,  useless.  We  have  not  to 
construct  human  nature  afresh,  but  to  take  it  as  we 
find  it,  and  make  the  best  of  it :  we  have  no  right, 
not  even  the  most  sensitive  of  us  women,  mercifully 
constituted  with  less  temptation  to  evil  than  men,  to 
treat  as  impure  what  God  has  not  made  impure,  or  to 
shrink  with  sanctimonious  ultra-delicacy  from  the 


256  Lost  Women. 

barest  mention  of  things  which,  though  happy  cii 
cumstances  of  temperament  or  education  have  shielded 
us  from  ever  being  touched  or  harmed  thereby,  we 
must  know  to  exist.  If  we  do  not  know  it,  our 
ignorance — quite  a  different  thing  from  innocence— -is 
at  once  both  helpless  and  dangerous :  narrows  our 
judgment,  exposes  us  to  a  thousand  painful  mistakes, 
and  greatly  limits  our  power  of  usefulness  in  the 
world. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  woman  who  is  for  ever 
paddling  needlessly  in  the  filthy  puddles  of  human 
nature,  just  as  a  child  delights  in  walking  up  a  dirty 
gutter  when  there  is  a  clean  pavement  alongside, 
deserves,  like  the  child,  whatever  mud  she  gets. 
And  there  is  even  a  worse  kind  of  woman  still,  only 
too  common  among  respectable  matrons,  talkative  old 
maids,  and  even  worldly,  fascinating  young  ones,  who 
is  ready  to  rake  up  every  scandalous  tale,  and  titter 
over  every  vile  double  entendre,  who  degrades  the  most 
solemn  mysteries  of  holy  Nature  into  vehicles  for 
disgraceful  jokes,  whose  mind,  instead  of  being  a 
decent  dwelling-house,  is  a  perfect  Augean  stable  of 


Lost  Women.  257 

uncleanness  Sucli  a  one  cannot  be  too  fiercely 
reprobated,  too  utterly  despised.  However  intact  hei 
reputation,  she  is  as  great  a  slur  upon  womanhood,  as 
great  a  bane  to  all  true  modesty,  as  the  most  unchaste 
Messalina  who  ever  disgraced  her  sex. 

I  beg  to  warn  these  foul  grubbers  in  the  dark 
places  of  the  earth — not  for  purposes  of  cleansing,  but 
merely  because  it  amuses  them — that  they  will  not 
find  anything  entertaining  in  this  article.  They  will 
only  find  one  woman's  indignant  protest  against  a 
tone  of  thought  and  conversation  which,  as  their 
consciences  will  tell  them,  many  other  women  think  it 
no  shame  to  pursue  when  among  their  own  sex ;  and 
which,  did  the  other  sex  know  it,  would  be  as  harm- 
ful, as  fatal,  as  any  open  vice,  by  making  men  dis- 
believe in  virtue — disbelieve  in  its.  For  its  vileness 
in  the  sight  of  Heaven — truly,  if  we  think  of  that, 
many  a  well-reputed  British  lady  is  as  much  a  "lost': 
woman  as  any  poor,  seduced  creature  whose  child  is 
born  in  a  workhouse,  or  strangled  at  a  ditch-side. 

It  is  to  the  latter  class,  who  have  fallen  out  of  the 
ranks  of  honest  women,  without  sinking  to  a  lower 


258  Lost  Women. 

depth  still,  that  I  chiefly  refer :  because  with  them, 
those  for  whom  this  book  is  meant — namely,  the 
ordinary  middle  ranks  of  unmarried  females — are 
more  likely  to  have  to  do.  That  other  class,  awful 
in  its  extent  and  universality,  of  women  who  make  a 
trade  of  sin,  whom  philanthropists  and  political  eco- 
nomists are  for  ever  discussing,  and  can  come  to  no 
conclusion  about — I  leave  to  the  wise  and  generous 
of  both  sexes  who  devote  their  lives  to  the  subject ; 
to  the  examination  and  amelioration  of  a  fact  so 
terrible  that,  were  it  not  a  fact,  one  would  hardly  be 
justified  in  alluding  to  it  here.  Wretched  onesl 
whom  even  to  think  of  turns  any  woman's  heart 
cold,  with  shame  for  her  own  sex,  and  horror  at  the 
other:  outcasts  to  whom  happiness  and  love  are 
things  unknown,  God  and  heaven  mere  words  to 
swear  with,  and  to  whom  this  earth  must  be  a  daily 
hell: 

"  Noil  ragionam  di  lor,  ma  guarda,  e  passa." 

But  the  others  cross  our  path  continually.    No  one 
can  have  taken  any  interest  in  the  working-classes 


Lost  Women.  259 

without  being  aware  how  frightfully  common  among 
them  is  what  they  term  '"a  misfortune" — how  few 
young  women  come  to  the  marriage-altar  at  all.  or 
come  there  just  a  week  or  two  before  maternity ;  or 
having  already  had  several  children,  often  only  half 
brothers  and  sisters,  whom  no  ceremony  has  ever 
legalized.  Whatever  be  the  causes  of  this — and  I 
merely  skim  over  the  surface  of  a  state  of  things 
which  the  Times  and  Sanitary  Commissioners  have 
plumbed  to  sickening  depths — it  undoubtedly  ex- 
ists ;  and  no  single  woman  who  takes  any  thought  of 
*  what  is  going  on  around  her,  no  mistress  or  mother 
who  requires  constantly  servants  for  her  house,  and 
nurse-maids  for  her  children,  can  or  dare  blind  her- 
self to  the  fact.  It  is  easy  for  tenderly  reared  young 
ladies,  who  study  human  passions  through  Miss 
Austen  or  Miss  Edgeworth,  or  the  Loves  of  the  Angels, 
to  say:  "How  shocking!  Oh,  it  can't  be  true!"  But 
it  is  true;  and  they  will  not  live  many  more  years 
without  finding  it  to  be  true.  Better  face  truth  at 
once,  in  all  its  bareness,  than  be  swaddled  up  for  ever 
in  the  folds  of  a  silken  falsehood. 


260  Lost  Women. 

Another  fact,  stranger  still  to  account  for,  is,  that 
the  women  who  thus  fall  are  by  no  means  the  worst 
of  their  station.  I  have  heard  it  affirmed  by  more 
than  one  lady — by  one  in  particular,  whose  experi- 
ence is  as  large  as  her  benevolence — that  many  of 
them  are  of  the  very  best ;  refined,  intelligent,  truth- 
ful, and  affectionate. 

"I  don't  know  how  it  is,"  she  would  say — 
"  whether  their  very  superiority  makes  them  dissatis- 
fied with  their  own  rank — such  brutes  or  clowns  as 
labouring  men  often  are! — so  that  they  fall  easier 
victims  to  the  rank  above  them ;  or  whether,  though 
this  theory  will  shock  many  people,  other  virtues  can 
exist  and  flourish,  entirely  distinct  from,  and  after  the 
loss  of,  that  which  we  are  accustomed  to  believe  the 
indispensable  prime  virtue  of  our  sex — chastity.  I 
cannot  explain  it ;  I  can  only  say  that  it  is  so :  that 
some  of  my  most  promising  village-girls  have  been 
the  first  to  come  to  harm ;  and  some  of  the  best  and 
most  faithful  servants  I  ever  had,  have  been  girls  who 
have  fallen  into  shame,  and  who,  had  I  not  gone  to 


Lost  Women.  261 

the  rescue,  and  put  them  on  the  way  to  do  wel}, 
would  infallibly  have  become  'lost'  women." 

There,  perhaps,  is,  one  clue  caught.  Had  she  not 
"come  to  the  rescue."  Kescue,  then,  is  possible;  and 
they  were  capable  of  being  rescued. 

I  read  lately  an  essay,  and  from  a  pure  and  good 
woman's  pen,  too,  arguing,  what  licentious  material- 
ists are  now-a-days  unblushingly  asserting,  that 
chastity  is  not  indispensable  in  our  sex ;  that  the  old 
chivalrous  boast  of  families — "all  their  men  were 
brave,  and  all  their  women  virtuous" — was,  to  say 
the  least,  a  mistake,  which  led  people  into  worse  ills 
than  it  remedied,  by  causing  an  extravagant  terror  at 
the  loss  of  these  good  qualities,  and  a  corresponding 
indifference  to  evil  ones  much  more  important. 

While  widely  differing  from  this  writer— for  God 
forbid  that  our  Englishwomen  should  ever  come  to 
regard  with  less  horror  than  now  the  loss  of  personal 
chastity! — I  think  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  even 
this  loss  does  not  indicate  total  corruption  or  entail 
permanent  degradation ;  that  after  it,  and  in  spite  of 

* 

it,  many  estimable  and  womanly  qualities  may  be 


262  Lost  Women. 

found  existing,  not  only  in  our  picturesque  Neft 
Gwynnes  and  Peg  Woffingtons,  but  our  poor  every- 
day sinners:  the  servant  obliged  to  be  dismissed 
without  a  character  and  with  a  baby  ;  the  sempstress 
quitting  starvation  for  elegant  infamy ;  the  illiterate 
village  lass,  who  thinks  it  so  grand  to  be  made  a  lady 
of — so  much  better  to  be  a  rich  man's  mistress  than  a 
working-man's  ill-used  wife,  or  rather  slave. 

Till  we  allow  that  no  one  sin,  not  even  this  sin, 
necessarily  corrupts  the  entire  character,  we  shall 
scarcely  be  able  to  judge  it  with  that  fairness  which 
gives  hope  of  our  remedying  it,  or  trying  to  lessen  in 
ever  so  minute  a  degreje,  by  our  individual  dealing 
with  any  individual  case  that  comes  in  cur  way,  the 
enormous  aggregate  of  misery  that  it  entails.  This  it 
behoves  us  to  do,  even  on  selfish  grounds,  for  it 
touches  us  closer  than  many  of  us  aro  aware — ay,  in 
our  hearths  and  homes — in  the  sons  and  brothers  that 
we  have  to  send  out  to  struggle  in  a  world  of  which 
we  at  the  fireside  know  absolutely  nothing;  if  we 
marry,  in  the  fathers  we  give  to  our  innocent  children, 
the  servants  we  trust  their  infancy  to,  and  the 


Lost  Women.  263 

influences  to  which  we  are  obliged  to  expose  them 
daily  and  hourly,  unless  we  were  to  bring  them  up  in 
a  sort  of  domestic  Happy  Yalley,  which  their  first 
effort  would  be  to  get  out  of  as  fast  as  ever  they  could. 
And  supposing  we  are  saved  from  all  this ;  that  our 
position  is  one  peculiarly  exempt  from  evil ;  that  if 
pollution  in  any  form  comes  nigh  us,  we  just  sweep  it 
hastily  and  noiselessly  away  from  our  doors,  and  think 
we  are  all  right  and  safe.  Alas!  we  forget  that  a 
refuse-heap  outside  her  gate  may  breed  a  plague  even 
in  a  queen's  palace. 

One  word,  before  continuing  this  subject.  Many 
of  us  will  not  investigate  it  because  they  are  afraid  : 
afraid,  not  so  much  of  being,  as  of  being  thought  to 
be,  especially  by  the  other  sex,  incorrect,  indelicate, 
unfeminine ;  of  being  supposed  to  know  more  than 
they  ought  to  know,  or  than  the  present  refinement 
of  society — a  good  and  beautiful  thing  when  real — 
concludes  that  they  do  know. 

0  women  !  women  !  why  have  you  not  more  faith 
in  yourselves — in  that  strong  inner  purity  which  alone 
can  make  a  woman  brave!  which,  if  she  knows 


264  Lost  Women. 

herself  to  be  clean  in  heart  and  desire,  in  body  ana 
soul,  loving  cleanness  for  its  own  sake,  and  not  for  the 
credit  that  it  brings,  will  give  her  a  freedom  of  action 
and  a  fearlessness  of  consequences  which  are  to  her  a 
greater  safeguard  than  any  external  decorum.  To  be, 
and  not  to  seem,  is  the  amulet  of  her  innocence. 

Young  women,  who  look  forward  to  marriage  and 
motherhood,  in  all  its  peace  and  dignity,  as  your 
natural  lot,  have  you  ever  thought  for  a  moment  what 
it  must  be  to  feel  that  you  have  lost  innocence,  that 
no  power  on  earth  can  ever  make  you  innocent  any 
more,  or  give  you  back  that  jewel  of  glory  and 
strength,  having  which,  as  the  old  superstition  says, 

"  Even  the  lion  will  turn  and  flee 
From  a  maid  in  the  pride  of  her  purity  ?" 

That,  whether  the  world  knows  it  or  not,  you  know 
yourself  to  be — not  this  ?  The  free,  happy  ignorance 
of  maidenhood  is  gone  for  ever ;  the  sacred  dignity 
and  honour  of  matronhood  is  not,  and  never  can  be 
attained.  Surely  this  consciousness  alone  must  be  the 
most  awful  punishment  to  any  woman;  and  from  it 


Lost  Women.  265 

no  kindness,  no  sympathy,  no  concealment  of  shame, 
or  even  restoration  to  good  repute,  can  entirely  free 
her.  She  must  bear  her  burden,  lighter  or  heavier  as 
it  may  seem  at  different  times,  and  she  must  bear  it 
to  the  day  of  her  death.  I  think  this  fact  alone  is 
enough  to  make  a  chaste  woman's  first  feeling 
towards  an  unchaste  that  of  unqualified,  unmitigated 
pity. 

This,  not  in  the  form  of  exaggerated  sentimental- 
ism,  with  which  it  has  of  late  been  the  fashion  to 
treat  such  subjects,  laying  all  the  blame  upon  the 
seducer,  and  exalting  the  seduced  into  a  paragon  of 
injured  simplicity,  whom  society  ought  to  pet,  and 
soothe,  and  treat  with  far  more  interest  and  considera- 
tion than  those  who  have  not  erred.  Never,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  was  there  a  greater  mistake  than  that 
into  which  some  writers  have  fallen,  in  fact  and 
fiction,  but  especially  in  fiction,  through  their  gene- 
rous over-eagerness  to  redeem  the  lost.  These  are 
painted — one  heroine  I  call  to  mind  now — as  such 
patterns  of  excellence,  that  we  wonder,  first,  how  they 

ever  could    have  been   led    astray,    and    secondly, 

12 


266  Lost  Women. 

whether  this  exceeding  helplessness  and  simplicity  of 
theirs  did  not  make  the  sin  so  venial,  that  it  seems  as 
wrong  to  blame  them  for  it  as  to  scold  a  child  for 
tumbling  into  an  open  well.  Consequently,  their 
penitence  becomes  unnecessary  and  unnatural ;  their 
suffering  disproportfonably  unjust.  You  close  the 
book,  inclined  to  arraign  society,  morality,  and,  what 
is  worse,  Providence;  but  for  all  else,  feeling  that 
the  question  is  left  much  as  you  found  it;  that 
angelic  sinners  such  as  these,  if  they  exist  at  all,  are 
such  exceptions  to  the  generality  of  their  class,  that 
their  example  is  of  very  little  practical  service  to  the 
rest. 

To  refine  away  error  till  it  is  hardly  error  at  all,  to 
place  vice  under  such  extenuating  circumstances  that 
we  cannot  condemn  it  for  sheer  pity,  is  a  fault  so 
dangerous  that  Charity  herself  ought  to  steel  her 
heart  against  it.  Far  better  and  safer  to  call  Crime 
by  its  right  name,  and  paint  it  in  its  true  colours-  — 
treating  it  even  as  the  Bagged  Schools  did  tae  young 
vagabonds  of  our  streets — not  by  persuading  them 
and  society  that  they  were  clean,  respectable,  ill-used, 


Lost  Women.  267 

and  maligned  individuals ;  or  by  waiting  for  them  to 
grow  decent  before  they  dealt  with  them  at  all,  but 
by  simply  saying :  "  Come,  just  as  you  are — ragged, 
dirty,  dishonest.  Only  come,  and  we  will  do  our  best 
to  make  you  what  you  ought  to  be." 

Allowing  the  pity,  which,  as  I  said,  ought  to  be  a 
woman's  primary  sentiment  towards  her  lost  sister- 
hood, what  is  the  next  thing  to  be  done?  Surely 
there  must  be  some  light  beyond  that  of  mere  com- 
passion to  guide  her  in  her  after-conduct  towards 
them? 

Where  shall  we  find  this  light  ?  In  the  world  and 
its  ordinary  code  of  social  morality,  suited  to  social 
convenience  ?  I  fear  not.  The  general  opinion,  even 
among  good  men,  seems  to  be  that  this  great  question 
is  a  very  sad  thing,  but  a  sort  of  unconquerable 
necessity;  there  is  no  use  in  talking  about  it,  and 
indeed  the  less  it  is  talked  of  the  better.  Good 
women  are  much  of  the  same  mind.  The  laxer-prin- 
cipled  of  both  sexes  treat  the  matter  with  philosophi- 
cal indifference,  or  with  the  kind  of  laugh  that  makes 
the  blood  boil  in  any  truly  virtuous  heart. 


268  Lost  Women. 

Then,  where  are  we  to  look? — 

I  came  not  to  call  the  righteous,  but  sinners   to  repent- 
ance." 

1  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee :  go  and  sin  no  more" 
"  Her  sins,  which  are  many,  are  forgiven ;  because  she  loved 
much." 

These  words,  thus  quoted  here,  may  raise  a  sneer  on 
the  lips  of  some,  and  shock  others  who  are  accus- 
tomed to  put  on  religion  with  their  Sunday  clothes, 
and  take  it  off  on  Monday,  as  quite  too  fine,  maybe  too 
useless  for  every-day  wear.  But  I  must  write  them, 
because  I  believe  them.  I  believe  there  is  no  other 
light  on  this  difficult  question  than  that  given  by  the 
New  Testament.  There,  clear  and  plain,  and  every- 
where repeated,  shines  the  doctrine — of  which,  until 
then,  there  was  no  trace,  either  in  external  or  revealed 
religion — that  for  every  crime,  being  repented  of  and 
forsaken,  there  is  forgiveness  with  Heaven;  and  if 
with  Heaven,  there  ought  to  be  with  men.  This, 
without  entering  at  all  into  the  doctrinal  question  of 
atonement,  but  simply  taking  the  basis  of  Christian 


Lost  Women.  269 

morality,  as  contrasted  with  the  natural  morality 
of  the  savage,  or  even  of  the  ancient  Jew,  which 
without  equivalent  retribution  pre-supposes  no  such 
thing  as  pardon. 

All  who  have  had  any  experience  among  criminals 
— from  the  poor  little  "black  sheep  "  of  the  family, 
who  is  always  getting  into  trouble,  and  is  told  conti- 
nually by  everybody  that,  strive  as  he  will,  he  never 
can  be  a  good  boy,  like  brother  Tommy,  down  to  the 
lowest,  most  reprobate  convict,  who  is  shipped  off  to 
the  colonies  because  the  mother-country  cannot  exactly 
hang  him,  and  does  not  know  what  else  to  do  with 
him — unite  in  stating  that,  when  you  shut  the  door 
of  hope  on  any  human  soul,  you  may  at  once  give  up 
all  chance  of  its  reformation.  As  well  bid  a  man  eat 
without  food,  see  without  light,  or  breathe  without  air, 
as  bid  him  mend  his  ways,  while  at  the  same  time  you 
tell  him  that,  however  he  amends,  he  will  be  in  just 
the  same  position — the  same  hopelessly  degraded, 
unpardoned,  miserable  sinner. 

Yet  this  is  practically  the  language  used  to  fallen 

women,  and  chiefly  by  their  own  sex :  "  God  may  for- 

12 


270  "  Lost  Women. 

give  you,  but  we  never  can !" — a  declaration  which: 
however  common,  in  spirit  if  not  in  substance,  is, 
when  one  comes  to  analyse  it,  unparalleled  in  its  arro- 
gance of  blasphemy. 

That  for  a  single  offence,  however  grave,  a  whole 
life  should  be  blasted,  is  a  doctrine  repugnant  even  to 
Nature's  own  dealings  in  the  visible  world.  There, 
her  voice  clearly  says — "Let  all  these  wonderful  pow- 
ers of  vital  renewal  have  free  play  :  let  the  foul  flesh 
slough  itself  away  ;  lop  off  the  gangrened  limb ;  enter 
into  life  maimed,  if  it  must  be :"  but  never,  till  the 
last  moment  of  total  dissolution,  does  she  say  ;  "  Thou 
shalt  not  enter  into  life  at  all." 

Therefore,  once  let  a  woman  feel  that,  in  moral  as 
in  physical  disease,  "  while  there  is  life  there  is  hope  " 
— dependent  on  the  one  only  condition  that  she  shall 
sin  no  more,  and  what  a  future  you  open  for  her! 
what  a  weight  you  lift  off  from  her  poor  miserable 
spirit,  which  might  otherwise  be  crushed  down  to  the 
lowest  deep,  to  that  which  is  far  worse  than  any  bodily 
pollution,  ineradicable  corruption  of  soul ! 

The  next  thing  to  be  set  before  her  is  courage. 


Lost  Women.  271 

That  intolerable  dread  of  shame,  which  is  the  last 
token  of  departing  modesty,  to  what  will  it  not  drive 
some  women!  To  what  self-control  and  ingenuity, 
what  resistance  of  weakness  and  endurance  of  bodily 
pain,  which,  in  another  cause,  would  be  called  heroic 
— blunting  every  natural  instinct,  and  goading  them 
on  to  the  last  refuge  of  mortal  fear — infanticide. 

Surely,  even  by  this  means,  many  a  woman  might 
be  saved,  if  there  were  any  one  to  save  her,  any  one 
to  say  plainly:  "What  are  you  afraid  of — God  or 
man?  your  sin  or  its  results?"  Alas!  it  will  be 
found  almost  invariably  the  latter :  loss  of  position,  of 
character,  and  consequently  of  the  means  of  livelihood. 
Kespectability  shuts  the  door  upon  her ;  mothers  will 
not  let  their  young  folks  come  into  contact  with  her : 
mistresses  will  not  take  her  as  a  servant.  Nor  can  one 
wonder  at  this,  even  while  believing  that  in  many 
cases  the  fear  is  much  more  selfish  than  virtuous,  and 
continued  long  after  its  cause  has  entirely  ceased  to 
exist.  It  is  one  of  the  few  cases  in  which — at  least  at 
first — the  sufferers  cannot  help  themselves ;  they  must 
suffer  for  a  season :  they  must  bear  patiently  the  work- 


272  Lost  Women. 

ing  out  of  that  immutable  law  which  makes  sin 
sooner  or  later,  its  own  Nemesis. 

But  not  for  ever — and  it  is  worth  while,  in  con« 
sidering  this  insane  terror  of  worldly  opinion,  to  ask : 
"  Which  half  of  the  world  are  you  afraid  of,  the  good 
or  the  bad?"  For  it  may  often  be  noticed,  the  less 
virtuous  people  are,  the  more  they  shrink  away  from 
the  slightest  whiff  of  the  odour  of  un-sanctity.  The 
good  are  ever  the  most  charitable,  the  pure  are  the 
most  brave.  I  believe  there  are  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands of  Englishwomen  who  would  willingly  throw 
the  shelter  of  their  stainless  repute  around  any  poor 
creature  who  came  to  them  and  said  honestly :  "I 
have  sinned — help  me  that  I  may  sin  no  more."  But 
the  unfortunates  will  not  believe  this.  They  are  like 
the  poor  Indians,  who  think  it  necessary  to  pacify  the 
evil  principle  by  a  greater  worship  than  that  which 
they  offer  to  the  Good  Spirit ;  because,  they  say,  the 

Bad  Spirit  is  the  stronger.     Have  we  not,  even  in 

• 

this  Britain,  far  too  many  such  tacit  devil- worshippers? 

Given  a  chance,  the  smallest  chance,  and  a  woman's 
redemption  lies  in  her  own  hands.  She  cannot  b« 


Lost  Women.  273 

too  strongly  impressed  with  this  fact,  or  too  soon, 
No  human  power  could  have  degraded  her  against 
her  will ;  no  human  power  can  keep  her  in  degrada- 
tion unless  by  her  will.  Granted  the  sin,  howsoever 
incurred,  wilfully  or  blindly,  or  under  circumstances 
of  desperate  temptation ;  capable  of  some  palliations, 
or  with  no  palliation  at  all — take  it  just  as  it  stands, 
in  its  whole  enormity,  and — there  leave  it.  Set  it 
aside,  at  once  and  altogether,  and  begin  anew.  Better 
beg,  or  hunger,  or  die  in  a  ditch — except  that  the 
people  who  die  in  ditches  are  not  usually  the  best  of 
even  this  world's  children — than  live  a  day  in  volun- 
tary unchastity. 

This  may  sound  fine  and  romantic — far  too 
romantic,  forsooth,  to  be  applied  to  any  of  the  cases 
that  we  are  likely  to  meet  with.  And  yet  it  is  the 
plain  truth :  as  true  of  a  king's  mistress  as  of  a  ruined 
servant-maid.  No  help  from  without  can  rescue 
either,  unless  she  wishes  to  save  herself. 

She  has  more  power  to  do  this  than  at  first  appears ; 
but  it  must  be  by  the  prime  agent,  Truth. 

After  the  first  false  step,  the  principal  cause  of 
12* 


274  Lost  Women. 

women's  further  downfall  is  their  being  afraid  of 
truth — truth,  which  must  of  necessity  be  tho  begin- 
ning and  end  of  all  attempts  at  restoration  to  honour1. 
For  the  wretched  girl,  who,  in  terror  of  losing  a 
place,  or  of  being  turned  from  an  angry  father's  door, 
fabricates  tale  after  tale,  denies  and  denies  till  she  can 
deny  no  longer,  till  all  ends  in  a  jail  and  a  charge  of 
child-murder ;  for  the  fashionable  lady  whose  life  is  a 
long  deceit,  exposed  to  constant  fear  lest  a  breath 
should  tear  her  flimsy  reputation  to  rags  ;  and  for  all 
the  innumerable  cases  between  these  two  poles  of 
society,  there  is  but  one  warning — No  virtue  ever 
was  founded  on  a  lie. 

The  truth,  then,  at  all  risks  and  costs — the  truth 
from  the  beginning.  Make  a  clean  breast  to  whom- 
soever you  need  to  make  it,  and  then — face  the 
world. 

This  must  be  terrible  enough — no  denying  that; 
but  it  must  be  done :  there  is  no  help  for  it.  Perhaps, 
in  many  a  case,  if  it  were  done  at  once,  it  would 
save  much  after-misery,  especially  the  perpetual 
dreat1  and  danger  of  exposure,  which  makes  the  sin 


Lost  Women.  275 

itself  quite  a  secondary  consideration  compared  with 
the  fear  of  its  discovery.  This  once  over,  with  all  its 
paralysing  effects,  the  worst  has  come  to  the  worst, 
and  there  is  a  chance  of  hope. 

Begin  again.  Put  the  whole  past  life  aside  as  if  it 
had  never  been,  and  try  what  you  can  do  with  the 
future.  This,  I  think,  should  be  the  counsel  given 
to  all  erring  women  not  irretrievably  "  lost." 

It  would  be  a  blessed  thing  if  our  honourable  wo- 
men, mothers  and  matrons,  would  consider  a  little 
more  what  could  be  done  with  such  persons :  any 
openings  for  useful  employment ;  any  positions  suffi- 
ciently guarded  to  be  safe,  and  yet  free  enough  to 
afford  trial,  without  drawing  too  harshly  the  line — 
always  harsh  enough — between  these,  and  those  who 
are  of  unblemished  reputation.  Reformatories,  Mag- 
dalen Institutions,  and  the  like,  are  admirable  in  their 
way ;  but  there  are  numberless  cases  in  which  indi- 
vidual judgment  and  help  alone  are  possible.  It  is 
this — the  train  of  thought  that  shall  result  in  act,  and 
which  I  desire  to  suggest  to  individual  minds,  in  the 
hope  of  arousing  that  imperceptibly  small  influence 


276  Lost  Women. 

of  the  many,  which  forms  the  strongest  lever  of  uni 
versal  opinion. 

I  said  in  a  former  paper,  that  the  only  way  tc 
make  people  good,  is  to  make  them  happy.  Strange 
that  this  truth  should  apply  to  circumstances  like 
these  now  written  of !  and  yet  it  does ;  and  it  would 
be  vain  to  deny  it.  Bid  a  woman  lift  up  her  head 
and  live ;  tell  her  that  she  can  and  ought  to  live,  and 
you  must  give  her  something  to  live  for.  You  must 
put  into  her  poor  sore  heart,  if  you  can,  a  little 
more  than  peace — comfort.  And  where  is  she  to 
find  it? 

Heterodox  as  the  doctrine  may  appear  to  some, 
it  seems  to  me  that  Heaven  always  leaves  its  sign 
of  hope  and  redemption  on  any  woman  when  she  is 
left  with  a  child.  Some  taste  of  the  ineffable  joy, 
the  solemn  consecration  of  maternity,  must  come 
even  to  the  most  wretched  and  guilty  creature  think- 
ing of  the  double  life  she  bears,  or  the  helpless  life  to 
which  she  has  given  birth — that  life  for  which  she  is 
as  responsible  to  God,  to  itself,  and  to  the  woild,  as 
any  married  mother  of  them  alL 


Lost  Women.  277 

And  the  sense  of  responsibility  alone  conveys  a 
certain  amount  of  comfort  and  hope.  One  can  ima- 
gine many  a  sinful  mother,  who,  for  the  very  child's 
sake,  would  learn  to  hate  the  sin,  and  to  make  to 
the  poor  innocent  the  only  atonement  possible,  by 
giving  it  what  is  better  even  than  stainless  birth — a 
virtuous  bringing-up.  One  can  conceive  such  a  wo- 
man taking  her  baby  in  her  arms,  and  starting  afresh 
to  face  the  world — made  bold  by  a  love  which  has  no 
taint  in  it,  and  cheered  by  the  knowledge  that  no 
human  being  can  take  from  her  either  this  love,  or 
its  duties,  or  its  rewards. 

For  it  rests  with  herself  alone,  the  comfort  she  may 
derive  from,  and  the  honour  in  which  she  may  be 
held  by,  her  child.  A  mother's  subsequent  conduct 
and  character  might  give  a  son  as  much  pride  in  her, 
and  in  the  nameless  parentage  which  he  owes  her,  as 
in  any  long  lawful  line 

"  Whose  ignoble  blood 
Has  crept  through  scoundrels  ever  since  the  flood." 

Even  a  daughter  might  live  to  say :   "  Mother,  do  not 


278  Lost  Women. 

grieve ;  I  had  rather  liave  had  you,  just  as  you  are, 
than  any  mother  I  know.  It  has  been  better,  for  me 
at  least,  than  if  you  had  married  my  father." 

1  have  written  thus*  much,  and  yet,  after  all,  it 
seems  but  "words,  words,  words."  Everywhere 
around  us  we  see  women  falling,  fallen,  and  we 
cannot  help  them ;  we  cannot  make  them  feel  the 
hideousness  of  sin,  the  peace  and  strength  of  that 
cleanness  of  soul  which  is  not  afraid  of  anything  in 
earth  or  heaven ;  we  cannot  force  upon  their  minds 
the  possibility  of  return,  after  ever  so  long  wander- 
ings, to  those  pleasant  paths  out  of  which  there  is  no 
peace  and  no  strength  for  either  man  or  woman  ;  and 
in  order  to  this  return  is  needed — for  both  alike — not 
so  much  outside  help,  as  inward  repentance. 

All  I  can  do — all,  I  fear,  that  any  one  can  do  by 
mere  speech — is  to  impress  upon  every  woman,  and 
chiefly  upon  those  who,  reared  innocently  in  safe 
homes,  view  the  wicked  world  without,  somewhat 
like  gazers  at  a  show  or  spectators  at  a  battle — 
shocked,  wondering,  perhaps  pitying  a  little,  but  not 
understanding  at  all — that  this  repentance  is  possible 


Lost  Women,  275 

Also,  that  once  having  returned  to  a  chaste  life,  a 
woman's  former  life  should  never  once  be  "  cast  up" 
against  her  ,  that  she  should  be  allowed  to  resume,  if 
not  her  pristine  position,  at  least  one  that  is  full  of 
usefulness,  pleasantness,  and  respect — a  respect,  the 
amount  of  which  must  be  determined  by  her  own 
daily  conduct.  She  should  be  judged — as,  indeed, 
human  wisdom  alone  has  a  right  to  judge,  in  all  cases 
— solely  by  what  she  is  now,  and  not  by  what  she  has 
been.  That  judgment  may  be,  ought  to  be,  stern 
and  fixed  as  justice  itself  with  regard  to  her  present, 
and  even  her  past,  so  far  as  concerns  the  crime  com- 
.mitted;  but  it  ought  never  to  take  the  law  into  its 
own  hands  towards  the  criminal,  who,  for  all  it 
knows,  may  have  long  since  become  less  a  criminal 
than  a  sufferer.  Virtue  degrades  herself,  and  loses 
every  vestige  of  her  power,  when  her  dealings  with 
Yice  sink  into  a  mere  matter  of  individual  opinion, 
personal  dislike,  or  selfish  fear  of  harm.  For  all 
offences,  punishment,  retributive  and  inevitable,  must 
come ;  but  punishment  is  one  thing,  revenge  is  ano- 
ther. ONE  only,  who  is  Omniscient  as  well  as  Omni- 
potent, can  declare,  "  Vengeance  is  I/me." 


CHAPTER  XII. 

GROWING    OLD. 

1  Do  ye  think  of  the  days  that  are  gone,  Jeanie, 

As  ye  sit  by  your  fire  at  night  ? 
Do  ye  wish  that  the  morn  would  bring  back  the 

When  your  heart  and  your  step  were  so  light  ?' 
'  I  think  of  the  days  that  are  gone,  Robin, 

And  of  ah1  that  I  joyed  in  then  ; 
But  the  brightest  that  ever  arose  on  me, 

I  have  never  wished  back  again.'  " 

GROWING  old!  A  time  we  talk  of,  and  jest  01 
moralise  over,  but  find  almost  impossible  to  realise — 
at  least  to  ourselves.  In  others,  we  can  see  its 
approach  clearer:  yet  even  then  we  are  slow  to 
recognise  it.  "What,  Miss  So-and-so  looking  old, 
did  you  say  ?  Impossible !  she  is  quite  a  young 
person:  only  a  year  older  than  I — and  that  would 
make  her  just  ....  Bless  me  !  I  am  forgetting  ho\? 


Growing  Old.  281 

time  goes  on.  Yes," — with  a  faint  deprecation  which 
truth  forbids  you  to  contradict,  and  politeness  to 
notice, — "  I  suppose  we  are  neither  of  us  so  young  as 
we  used  to  be." 

Without  doubt,  it  is  a  trying  crisis  in  a  woman's 
life — a  single  woman  particularly — when  she  begins 
to  suspect  she  is  "  not  so  young  as  she  used  to  be ;" 
that,  after  crying  ""Wolf"  ever  since  the  respectable 
maturity  of  seventeen — as  some  young  ladies  are  fond 
of  doing,  to  the  extreme  amusement  of  their  friends — 
the  grim  wolf,  old  age,  is  actually  showing  his  teeth 
in  the  distance ;  and  no  courteous  blindness  on  the 
part  of  these  said  friends,  no  alarmed  indifference  on 
her  own,  can  neutralise  the  fact  that  he  is,  if  still  far 
off,  in  sight.  And,  however  charmingly  poetical  he 
may  appear  to  sweet  fourteen-and-a-half,  who  writes 
melancholy  verses  about  "I  wish  I  were  again  a 
child,"  or  merry  three-and-twenty,  wlio  preserves  in 
silver  paper  "my  first  grey  hair,"  old  age,  viewed  as 
a  near  approaching  reality,  is — quite  another  thing. 

To  feel  that  you  have  had  your  fair  half  at  least  of 
the  ordinary  terms  of  years  allotted  to  mortals ;  that 


282  Growing  Old. 

you  have  no  right  to  expect  to  be  any  handsomer,  or 
stronger,  or  happier  than  you  are  now  ^  that  you  have 
climbed  to  the  summit  of  life,  whence  the  next  step 
must  necessarily  be  decadence ; — ay,  though  you  do 
mt  feel  it,  though  the  air  may  be  as  fresh,  and  the 
view  as  grand — still,  you  know  that  it  is  so.  Slower 
or  faster,  yoti  are  going  down-hill.  To  those  who  go 
"hand-in-hand," 

"  And  sleep  thegither  at  the  foot," 

it  may  be  a  safer  and  sweeter  descent;  but  I  am 
writing  for  those  who  have  to  make  the  descent 
alone. 

It  is  not  a  pleasant  descent  at  the  beginning. 
When  you  find  at  parties  that  you  are  not  asked  to 
dance  as  much  as  formerly,  and  your  partners  are 
chiefly  stout,  middle-aged  gentlemen,  and  slim  lads, 
who  blush  terribly  and  require  a  great  deal  of  draw- 
ing out; — when  you  are  "dear"-ed  and  patronised  by 
stylish  young  chits,  who  were  in  their  cradles  when 
you  were  a  grown  woman ;  or  when  some  boy,  who 
was  your  plaything  in  petticoats,  has  the  impertinence 


Growing  Old.  283 

to  look  over  your  head,  bearded  and  grand,  or  even 
to  consult  }  on  on  his  love-affairs ; — when  you  find 
your  acquaintance  delicately  abstaining  from  the 
term  "old  maid,"  in  your  presence,  or  immediately 
qualifying  it  by  an  eager  panegyric  on  the  solitary 
sisterhood ;  when  servants  address  you  as  "  Ma'am," 
instead  of  "Miss;"  and  if  you  are  at  all  stout  and 
comfortable-looking,  strange  shopkeepers  persist  in 
making  out  your  bills  to  "Mrs.  Blank,"  and  pressing 
upon  your  notice  toys  and  perambulators. 

Eather  trying,  too,  when,  in  speaking  of  yourself 
as  a  "girl" — which,  from  long  habit,  you  unwittingly 
do — you  detect  a  covert  smile  on  the  face  of  your 
interlocutor;  or,  led  by  chance  excitement  to  deport 
yourself  in  an  ujtra-youthful  manner,  some  instinct 
warns  you  that  you  are  making  yourself  ridiculous. 
Or  catching  in  some  strange  looking-glass  the  face 
that  you  are  too  familiar  with  to  notice  much,  ordina- 
rily, you  suddenly  become  aware  that  it  is  not  a  young 
face  ;  that  it  will  never  be  a  young  face  again  ;  that  it 
will  gradually  alter  and  alter,  until  the  known  face  of 
your  girlhood,  whether  plain  or  pretty,  loved  or  dis« 


284  Growing  Old. 

liked,  admired  or  despised,  will  have  altogethel 
vanished — nay,  is  vanished:  look  as  you  will,  you 
cannot  see  it  any  more. 

There  is  no  denying  the  fact,  and  it  ought  to  silence 
many  an  ill-natured  remark  upon  those  unlucky  onea 
who  insist  on  remaining  "  young  ladies  of  a  certain 
age," — that  with  most  people  the  passing  from  matu- 
rity to  middle  age  is  so  gradual,  as  to  be  almost  im- 
perceptible to  the  individual  concerned.  It  is  very 
difficult  for  a  woman  to  recognise  that  she  is  growing 
old ;  and  to  many — nay,  to  all,  more  or  less — this  re- 
cognition cannot  but  be  fraught  with  considerable 
pain.  Even  the  most  frivolous  are  somewhat  to  be 
pitied,  when,  not  conducting  themselves  as  passees, 
because  they  really  do  not  think  it,  they  expose  them- 
selves to  all  manner  of  misconstructions  by  still  deter- 
minedly grasping  that  fair  sceptre  'of  youth,  which 
they  never  suspect  is  now  the  merest  "  rag  of  sove- 
reignty"— sovereignty  deposed. 

Nor  can  the  most  sensible  woman  fairly  put  aside 
her  youth,  with  all  it  has  enjoyed,  or  lost,  or  missed ; 
its  hopes  and  interests,  omissions  and  commissions, 


Growing  Old.  285 

doings  and  sufferings;  satisfied  that  it  is  henceforth  tc 
be  considered  as  a  thing  gone  by — without  a  momen- 
tary spasm  of  the  heart.  Young  people  forget  this 
as  completely  as  they  forget  that  they  themselves  may 
one  day  experience  the  same,  or  they  would  not  be  so 
ready  to  laugh  at  even  the  foolishest  of  those  foolish 
old  virgins  who  deems  herself  juvenile  long  after 
everybody  else  has  ceased  to  share  in  the  pleasing 
delusion,  and  thereby  makes  both  useless  and  ridicu- 
lous that  season  of  early  autumn  which  ought  to  be 
the  most  peaceful,  abundant,  safe,  and  sacred  time  in 
a  woman's  whole  existence.  They  would  not,  with 
the  proverbial  harsh  judgment  of  youth,  scorn  so 
cruelly  those  poor  little  absurdities,  of  which  the  un- 
lucky person  who  indulges  therein  is  probably  quite 
unaware — merely  dresses  as  she  has  always  done,  and 
carries  on  the  harmless  coquetries  and  minauderies  of 
her  teens,  unconscious  how  exceedingly  ludicrous  they 
appear  in  a  lady  of — say  forty !  Yet  in  this  sort  of 
exhibition,  which  society  too  often  sees  and  enjoys, 
any  honest  heart  cannot  but  often  feel,  that  of  all  the 
actors  engaged  in  it  the  one  who  plays  the  least  ob- 


286  Growing  Old. 

jecti enable   and  disgraceful  part  is  she   who  only 
makes  a  fool  of  herself. 

Alas !  why  should  she  do  it  ?  Why  cling  so  des 
perately  to  the  youth  that  will  not  stay  ?  and  which; 
after  all,  is  not  such  a  very  precious  or  even  a  happy 
thing.  Why  give  herself  such  a  world  of  trouble  to 
deny  or  conceal  her  exact  age,  when  half  her  ac- 
quaintance must  either  know  it  or  guess  it,  or  be 
supremely  indifferent  about  it  ?  "Why  appear  dressed 
— imdressed,  cynics  would  say — after  the  pattern  of 
her  niece,  the  belle  of  the  ball ;  annoying  the  eye 
with  beauty  either  half  withered  or  long  overblown, 
and  which  in  its  prime  would  have  been  all  the  love- 
lier for  more  concealment  ? 

In  this  matter  of  dress,  a  word  or  two.  There  are 
two  styles  of  costume  which  ladies  past  their  premiere 
jeunesse  are  most  prone  to  fall  into :  one  hardly 
knows  which  is  the  worst.  Perhaps,  though,  it  is  the 
ultra-juvenile—such  as  the  insane  juxtaposition  of  a 
yellow  skin  and  white  tarlatane,  or  the  anomalous 
adorning  of  grey  hair  with  artificial  flowers.  It  may 
be  questioned  whether  at  any  age  beyond  twenty  a 


Growing  Old.  287 

ball-costume  is  rdfcly  becoming ;  but  after  thirty,  it  is 
the  very  last  sort  of  attire  that  a  lady  can  assume 
with  impunity.  It  is  said  that  you  can  only  make 
yourself  look  younger  by  dressing  a  little  older  than 
you  really  are ;  and  truly  I  have  seen  many  a  woman 
look  withered  and  old  in  the  customary  evening-dress 
which,  being  unmarried,  she  thinks  necessary  to 
shiver  in,  who  would  have  appeared  fair  as  a  sun- 
shiny October  day  if  she  would  only  have  done 
Nature  the  justice  to  assume,  in  her  autumn  time,  an 
autumnal  livery.  If  she  would  only  have  the  sense 
to  believe  that  grey  hair  was  meant  to  soften  wrinkles 
and  brighten  faded  cheeks,  giving  the  same  effect  for 
which  our  youthful  grandmothers  wore  powder ;  that 
flimsy,  light-coloured  dresses,  fripperied  over  with 
trimmings,  only  suit  airy  figures  and  active  motions ; 
that  a  sober-tinted  substantial  gown  and  a  pretty  cap 
will  any  day  take  away  ten  years  from  a  lady's  ap- 
pearance ; — above  all,  if  she  would  observe  this  one 
grand  rule  of  the  toilet,  always  advisable,  but  after 
youth  indispensable — that  though  good  personal 
41  points"  are  by  no  means  a  warrant  for  undue  ex- 


288  Growing  Old. 

hibition  thereof,  no  point  that  is  po^lfevely  unbeautiful 
ought  ever,  by  any  pretence  of  fashion  or  custom,  to 
be  shown. 

The  other  sort  of  dress,  which,  it  must  be  owned, 
is  less  frequent,  is  the  dowdy  style.  People  say — 
though  not  very  soon — "  Oh,  I  am  not  a  young  wo- 
man now  ;  it  does  not  signify  what  I  wear."  "Whe- 
ther they  quite  believe  it  is  another  question;  but 
they  say  it — and  act  upon  it  when  laziness  or  indiffer- 
ence prompts.  Foolish  women !  they  forget,  that  if 
we  have  reason  at  any  time  more  than  another  to 
mind  our  "  looks,"  it  is  when  our  looks  are  departing 
from  us.  Youth  can  do  almost  anything  in  the  toilet 
— middle-age  cannot ;  yet  is  none  the  less  bound  to 
present  to  her  friends  and  society  the  most  pleasing 
exterior  she  can.  Easy  is  it  to  do  this  when  we  have 
those  about  us  who  love  us,  and  take  notice  of  what 
we  wear,  and  in  whose  eyes  we  would  like  to  appear 
gracious  and  lovely  to  the  last,  so  far  as  nature  allows : 
not  easy  when  things  are  otherwise.  This,  perhaps, 
is  the  reason  why  we  see  so  many  unmarried  womeu 


Growing  Old.  289 

grow  careless  and  "  old-fashioned"  in  their  dress — 
"  What  does  it  signify  ? — nobody  cares." 

I  think  a  woman  ought  to  care  a  little — a  very 
little — for  herself.  Without  preaching  up  vanity,  or 
undue  waste  of  time  over  that  most  thankless  duty  of 
adorning  one's  self  for  nobody's  pleasure  in  particular 
— is  it  not  still  a  right  and  becoming  feeling  to  have 
some  respect  for  that  personality  which,  as  well  as 
our  soul,  Heaven  gave  us  to  make  the  best  of?  And 
is  it  not  our  duty — considering  the  great  number  of 
uncomely  people  there  are  in  the  world — to  lessen  it 
by  each  of  us  making  herself  as  little  uncomely  as  she 
can? 

Because  a  lady  ceases  to  dress  youthfully,  she  has 
no  excuse  for  dressing  untidily  ;  and  though  having 
found  out  that  one  general  style  suits  both  her  person, 
her  taste,  and  her  convenience,  she  keeps  to  it,  and 
generally  prefers  moulding  the  fashion  to  herself, 
rather  than  herself  to  the  fashion, — still,  that  is  no 
reason  why  she  should  try  the  risible  nerves  of  one 
generation  by  showing  up  to  them  the  out-of-date  cos- 
tume of  another.  Neatness  invariable ;  hues  carefully 

13 


290  Growing  Old. 

harmonised,  and  as  time  advances,  subsiding  into  a 
general  unity  of  tone,  softening  and  darkening  in 
c  olour,  until  black,  white,  and  grey  alone  remain,  as 
the  suitable  garb  for  old  age  :  these  things  are  every 
woman's  bounden  duty  to  observe  as  long  as  she  lives. 
No  poverty,  grief,  sickness,  or  loneliness — those  men- 
tal causes  which  act  so  strongly  upon  the  external 
life — can  justify  any  one  (to  use  a  phrase  probably 
soon  to  be  obsolete,  when  charity  and  common-sense 
have  left  the  rising  generation  no  Fifth  of  November) 
in  thus  voluntarily  "  making  a  Guy  of  herself." 

That  slow,  fine,  and  yet  perceptible  change  of 
mien  and  behaviour,  natural  and  proper  to  advancing 
years,  is  scarcely  reducible  to  rule  at  all.  It  is  but 
the  outer  reflection  of  an  inward  process  of  the  mind. 
We  only  discover  its  full  importance  by  the  absence 
of  it,  as  noticeable  in  a  person  "  who  has  such  very 
young'  manners,"  who  falls  into  raptures  of  enthusi- 
asm, and  expresses  loudly  every  emotion  of  her 
nature.  Such  a  character,  when  real,  is  unobjection- 
able, nay,  charming  in  extreme  youth ;  but  the  great 
improbability  of  its  being  real  makes  it  rather  ludi- 


Growing  Old.  291 

crous,  if  not  disagreeable,  in  mature  age,  when  the 
passions  die  out  or  are  quieted  down,  the  sense  of 
happiness  itself  is  calm,  and  the  fullest,  tenderest  tide 
of  which  the  loving  heart  is  capable,  may  be  described 
by  those  "still  waters"  which  "run  deep." 

To  "grow  old  gracefully,"  as  one,  who  truly  has 
exemplified  her  theory,  has  written  and  expressed  it, 
is  a  good  and  beautiful  thing ;  to  grow  old  worthily, 
a  better.  And  the  first  effort  to  that  end  is  not  only 
to  recognise,  but  to  become  personally  reconciled  to 
the  fact  of  youth's  departure ;  to  see,  or,  if  not  seeing, 
to  have  faith  in,  the  wisdom  of  that  which  we  call 
change,  yet  which  is  in  truth  progression ;  to  follow 
openly  and  fearlessly,  in  ourselves  and  our  daily  life, 
the  same  law  which  makes  spring  pass  into  summer, 
summer  into  autumn,  autumn  into  winter,  preserving 
an  especial  beauty  and  fitness  in  each  of  the  four. 

Yes,  if  women  could  only  believe  it,  there  is  a 
wonderful  beauty  even  in  growing  old.  The  charm 
of  expression  arising  from  softened  temper  or  ripened 
intellect,  often  amply  atones  for  the  loss  of  form  and 
colouring;  and,  consequently,  to  those  who  neve* 


292  Growing  Old. 

could  boast  either  of  these  latter,  years  give  much 
more  than  they  take  away.  A  sensitive  person  often 
requires  half  a  lifetime  to  get  thoroughly  used  to  this 
corporeal  machine,  to  attain  a  wholesome  indifference 
both  to  its  defects  and  perfections,  and  to  learn  at 
last,  what  nobody  would  acquire  from  any  teacher 
but  experience,  that  it  is  the  mind  alone  which  is  of 
any  consequence ;  that  with  a  good  temper,  sincerity, 
and  a  moderate  stock  of  brains — or  even  the  two 
former  only — any  sort  of  body  can  in  time  be  made 
useful,  respectable,  and  agreeable,  as  a  travelling- 
dress  for  the  soul.  Many  a  one,  who  was  absolutely 
plain  in  youth,  thus  grows  pleasant  and  well-looking 
in  declining  years.  You  will  hardly  ever  find  any- 
body, not  ugly  in  mind,  who  is  repulsively  ugly  in 
person  after  middle  life. 

So  with  the  character.  If  a  woman  is  ever  to  be 
wise  or  sensible,  the  chances  are  that  she  will  have 
become  so  somewhere  between  thirty  and  forty.  Her 
natural  good  qualities  will  have  developed;  her  evil 
ones  will  have  either  been  partly  subdued,  or  have 
overgrown  her  like  rampant  weeds ;  for,  however  we 


Growing  Old.  293 

may  talk  about  people  being  "not  a  whit  altered" — 
"just  the  same  as  ever" — not  one  of  us  is,  or  can  be, 
for  long  together,  exactly  the  same;  no  more  than 
that  the  body  we  carry  with  us  is  the  identical  body 
we  were  born  with,  or  the  one  we  supposed  ours 
seven  years  ago.  Therein,  as  in  our  spiritual  self 
which  inhabits  it,  goes  on  a  perpetual  change  and 
renewal :  if  this  ceased,  the  result  would  be,  not  per- 
manence, but  corruption.  In  moral  and  mental,  as 
well  as  physical  growth,  it  is  impossible  to  remain 
stationary;  if  we  do  not  advance,  we  retrograde. 
Talk  of  "too  late  to  improve "— " too  old  to  learn," 
&c. !  Idle  words !  A  human  being  should  be  im- 
proving with  every  day  of  a  lifetime ;  and  will  proba- 
bly have  to  go  on  learning  throughout  all  the  ages  of 
immortality. 

And  this  brings  me  to  one  among  the  number  of 
what  I  may  term  "  the  pleasures  of  growing  old." 

At  our  outset,  "to  love"  is  the  verb  we  are  most 
prone  to  conjugate;  afterwards  we  discover,  that 
though  the  first,  it  is  by  no  means  the  sole  verb  in  the 
grammar  of  life,  or  even  the  only  one  that  implies 


2  94  Growing  Old. 

(vide  Lennie  or  Murray)  "  to  be,  to  do,  or  to  suffer/ 
To  know — that  is,  to  acquire,  to  find  out,  to  be  able 
to  trace  and  appreciate  the  causes  of  things,  gradually 
becomes  a  necessity,  an  exquisite  delight.  We  begin 
to  taste  the  full  meaning  of  that  promise  which,  de- 
scribes the  other  world  as  a  place  where  "we  shall 
know  even  as  we  are  known."  Nay,  even  this  world, 
with  all  its  burdens  and  pains,  presents  itself  in  a 
phase  of  abstract  interest  entirely  apart  from  ourselves 
and  our  small  lot  therein,  whether  joyful  or  sorrowful. 
We  take  pleasure  in  tracing  the  large  workings  of  all 
things — more  clearly  apprehended  as  we  cease  to 
expect,  or  conduct  ourselves  as  if  we  expected,  that 
Providence  will  appear  as  Deus  ex  machind  for  our 
own  private  benefit.  We  are  able  to  pass  out  of  our 
own  small  daily  sphere,  and  take  interest  in  the  mar- 
vellous government  of  the  universe ;  to  see  the  grand 
workings  of  cause  and  effect,  the  educing  of  good  out 
of  apparent  evil,  the  clearing  away  of  the  knots  in 
tangled  destinies,  general  or  individual,  the  wonder- 
ful agency  of  time,  change  and  progress  in  ourselves, 
in  those  surrounding  us,  and  in  the  world  at  large. 


Growing  Old.  295 

"We  have  lived  just  long  enough  to  catch  a  faint 
tone  or  two  of  the  large  harmonies  of  nature  and  fate 
— to  trace  the  apparent  plot  and  purpose  of  our  own 
life  and  that  of  others,  sufficiently  to  make  us  content 
to  sit  still  and  see  the  play  played  out.  As  I  once 
heard  said,  "  We  feel  we  should  like  to  go  on  living, 
were  it  only  out  of  curiosity." 

In  small  minds,  this  feeling  expends  itself  in  med- 
dling, gossiping,  scandal-mongering ;  but  such  are 
only  the  abortive  developments  of  a  right  noble 
quality,  which,  properly  guided,  results  in  benefits 
incalculable  to  the  individual  and  to  society.  For, 
undoubtedly,  the  after-half  of  life  is  the  best  working- 
time.  Beautiful  is  youth's  enthusiasm,  and  grand  are 
its  achievements ;  but  the  most  solid  and  permanent 
good  is  done  by  the  persistent  strength  and  wide  expe- 
rience of  middle  age. 

A  principal  agent  in  this  is  a  blessing  which  rarely 
comes  till  then — contentment:  not  mere  resignation, 
a  passive  acquiescence  in  what  cannot  be  removed,  but 
active  contentment ;  bought,  and  cheaply,  too,  by  a 
personal  share  in  that  daily  account  of  joy  and  pain, 


2gb  Growing  Old. 

which  the  longer  one  lives  the  more  one  sees  is-prettj 
equally  balanced  in  all  lives.  Young  people  are  hap- 
py— enjoy  ecstatically,  either  in  prospect  or  fruition, 
"  the  top  of  life ;"  but  they  are  very  seldom  contented. 
It  is  not  possible.  Not  till  the  cloudy  maze  is  half 
travelled  through,  and  we  begin  to  see  the  object  and 
purpose  of  it,  can  we  be  really  content. 

One  great  element  in  this — nor  let  us  think  shame 
to  grant  that  which  God  and  nature  also  allow — con- 
sists in  the  doubtful  question,  "To 'marry  or  not  to 
marry?"   being  by  this  time  generally  settled;   the 
world's  idle  curiosity  or  impertinent  meddling  there- 
with having  come  to  an  end ;  which  alone  is  a  great 
boon  to  any  woman.     Her  relations  with  the  other 
sex  imperceptibly  change  their  character,  or  slowly 
decline.     Though  there  are  exceptions,  of  old  lovers 
who  have  become  friends,  and  friends  whom  no  new 
love  could  make  swerve  from  the  fealty  of  years,  still  it 
usually  happens  so.     If  a  woman  wishes  to  retain  her 
sway  over  mankind — not  an  unnatural  wish,  even  in 
the  good  and  amiable,  who  have  been  long  used  tc 
attention  and  admiration  in  society — she  must  do  it  by 


Growing  Old.  297 

means  quite  different  from  any  she  has  hitherto 
employed.  Even  then,  be  her  wit  ever  so  sparkling, 
her  influence  ever  so  pure  and  true,  she  will  often  find 
her  listener  preferring  bright  eyes  to  intellectual  con- 
versation, and  the  satisfaction  of  his  heart  to  the 
improvement  of  his  mind.  And  who  can  blame 
him? 

Pleasant  as  men's  society  undoubtedly  is ;  honour 
able,  well-informed  gentlemen,  who  meet  a  lady  on 
the  easy  neutral  ground  of  mutual  esteem,  and  take 
more  pains  to  be  agreeable  to  her  than,  unfortu- 
nately, her  own  sex  frequently  do ;  they  are,  after 
all,  but  men.  Not  one  of  them  is  really  necessary  to 
a  woman's  happiness,  except  the  one  whom,  by  this 
time,  she  has  probably  either  met,  or  lost,  or  found. 
Therefore,  however  uncomplimentary  this  may  sound 
to  those  charming  and  devoted  creatures,  which  of 
course  they  always  are  in  ladies' — young  ladies' — • 
society,  a  lady  past  her  youth  may  be  well  content  to 
let  them  go  before  they  depart  of  their  own  accord. 
I  fear  the  waning  coquette,  the  ancient  beauty,  as 

well  as  the  ordinary  woman,  who  has  had  her  fail 
1-3* 


298  Growing  Old. 

share  of  both,  love  and  liking,  must  learn  and  sho\i 
by  her  demeanour  she  has  learned  that  the  only  way 
to  preserve  the  unfeigned  respect  of  the  opposite  sex, 
is  by  letting  them  see  that  she  can  do  without  eithei 
their  attention  or  their  admiration. 

Another  source  of  contentment,  which  in  youth's 
fierce  self-dependence  it  would  be  vain  to  look  for — is 
the  recognition  of  one's  own  comparative  unimport- 
ance and  helplessness  in  the  scale  of  fate.  We  begin 
by  thinking  we  can  do  everything,  and  that  every- 
thing rests,  with  us  to  do;  the  merest  trifle  frets  and 
disturbs  us;  the  restless  heart  wearies  itself  with 
anxieties  over  its  own  future,  the  tender  one  over  the 
futures  of  those  dear  to  it.  Many  a  young  face  do  I 
see  wearing  the  indescribable  Martha-look — "  troubled 
about  many  things" — whom  I  would  fain  remind  of 
the  anecdote  of  the  ambassador  in  China.  To  him, 
tossing  sleepless  on  his  bed,  his  old  servant  said : 

"  Sir,  may  I  put  to  you,  and  "will  you  answer,  three 
questions?  First,  did  not  the  Almighty  govern  this 
world  very  well  before  you  came  into  it  ?" 

"  Of  course." 


Growing  Old.  299 

"  And  will  He  not  also  do  the  same  when  you  are 
gone  out  of  it?" 

"  I  know  that." 

"  Then,  do  you  not  think,  sir,  that  He  is  able  tc 
govern  it  while  you  are  in  it?" 

The  ambassador  smiled  assent,  turned  round,  and 
slept  calmly. 

Alas  I  it  is  the  slowest  and  most  painful  lesson  that 
Faith  has  to  learn — Faith,  not  Indifference — to  do 
steadfastly  and  patiently  all  that  lies  to  her  hand; 
and  there  leave  it,  believing  that  the  Almighty  is 
able  to  govern  His'  own  world. 

It  is  said  that  we  suffer  less  as  we  grow  older,  that 
pain,  like  joy,  becomes  dulled  by  repetition,  or  by 
the  callousness  that  comes  with  years.  In  one  sense 
this  is  true.  If  there  is  no  joy  like  the  joy  of  youth, 
the  rapture  of  a  first  love,  the  thrill  of  a  first  ambi- 
tion, God's  great  mercy  has  also  granted  that  there  is 
no  anguish  like  youth's  pain ;  so  total,  so  hopeless, 
blotting  out  earth  and  heaven,  falling  down  upon  the 
whole  being  like  a  stone.  This  never  comes  in  after 
life,  because  the  sufferer,  if  he  or  she  have  lived  tc 


300  Growing  Old. 

any  purpose  at  all,  lias  learned  that  God  never  meant 
any  human  being  to  be  crushed  under  any  calamity 
like  a  blind  worm  under  a  stone. 

For  lesser  evils,  the  fact  that  our  interests  gradu- 
ally take  a  wider  range,  allows  more  scope  for  the 
healing  power  of  compensation.  Also  our  strongest 
idiosyncrasies,  our  loves,  hates,  sympathies  and  pre- 
judices, having  assumed  a  more  rational  and  softened 
shape,  we  do  not  present  so  many  angles  for  the 
rough  attrition  of  the  world.  Likewise,  with  the  eye 
of  that  Faith  already  referred  to,  we  have  come  to 
view  life  in  its  entirety,  instead  of  agonisingly  puz- 
zling over  its  disjointed  parts,  which  are  not,  and 
were  never  meant  to  be,  made  wholly  clear  to  mortal 
eye.  And  that  calm  twilight,  which  by  nature's 
kindly^  law  so  soon  begins  to  creep  over  the  past, 
throws  over  all  things  a  softened  colouring  which 
altogether  transcends  and  forbids  regret.  I  suppose 
there  is  hardly  any  woman  with  a  good  heart  and  a 
clear  conscience,  who  does  not  feel,  on  the  whole,  the 
infinite  truth  of  the  verses  at  the  head  of  this  papcr; 
and  of  the  other  two  verses  which  I  here  add — partly 


Growing  Old.  301 

because  a  pleasant  rhyme  is  a  wholesome  thing  to 
cling  about  the  memory,  and  partly  in  the  hope  that 
some  one  may  own  or  claim  this  anonymous  song : — 

"  '  Do  ye  think  of  the  hopes  that  are  gone,  Jeanie, 

As  ye  sit  by  your  fire  at  night  ? 
Do  ye  gather  them  up  as  they  faded  fast 

Like  buds  with  an  early  blight  ?' 
'  I  think  of  the  hopes  that  are  gone,  Robm, 

And  I  mourn  not  their  stay  was  fleet ; 
For  they  fell  as  the  leaves  of  the  red  rose  fall, 
And  were  even  in  falling,  sweet.' 

'  Do  ye  think  of  the  friends  that  are  gone,  Jeanie, 

As  ye  sit  by  your  fire  at  night  ? 
Do  ye  wish  they  were  round  you  again  once  more 

By  the  hearth  that  they  made  so  bright  ?' 
'  I  think  of  the  friends  that  are  gone,  Robin, 

They  are  dear  to  my  heart  as  then : 
But  the  best  and  the  dearest  among  them  all 
I  have  never  wished  back  again  1 ' " 

Added  to  all  these  reasons,  contentment,  faith, 
cheerfulness,  and  the  natural  calming  down  of  both 
passions  and  emotions,  which  give  a  woman  greatei 


302  Growing  Old. 

capacity  for  usefulness  in  middle  life  than  in  any  pre- 
vious  portion  of  her  existence,  is  another — her 
greater  independence.  By  the  time  she  has  arrived 
at  the  half  of  those  three-score-years-and-ten  which 
form  the  largest  available  limit  of  active  life,  she 
will  generally  have  become,  in  the  best  sense  of  the 
term,  her  own  mistress.  I  do  not  mean  as  regards 
exemption  from  family  ties  and  restrictions,  for  this 
sort  of  liberty  is  sadder  than  bondage,  but  she  will 
be  mistress  over  herself — she  will  have  learned  to  un- 
derstand herself,  mentally  and  bodily.  Nor  is  this 
last  a  small  advantage,  for  it  often  takes  years  to 
comprehend,  and  act  upon  when  comprehended,  the 
physical  peculiarities  of  one's  own  constitution. 
Much  valetudinarianism  among  women  arises  from 
ignorance  or  neglect  of  the  commonest  sanitary  laws ; 
and  indifference  to  that  grand  preservative  of  a  healthy 
body,  a  well-controlled,  healthy  mind.  Both  of  these 
are  more  attainable  in  middle  age  than  youth ;  and, 
therefore,  the  sort  of  happiness  they  bring — a  solid, 
useful,  available  happiness — is  more  in  her  power 
then,  than  at  any  earlier  period. 


Growing  Old.  303 

And  why  ?  Because  she  has  ceased  to  think  prin- 
cipally of  herself  and  her  own  pleasures ;  because,  as 
I  tried  to  show  in  a  former  chapter,  happiness  itself 
has  become  to  her  an  accidental  thing,  which  the 
good  God  may  give  or  withhold  as  He  sees  most  fit 
for  her — most  adapted  to  the  work  for  which  He 
means  to  use  her  in  her  generation.  This  conviction 
of  being  at  once  an  active  and  a  passive  agent — self* 
working,  worked  through,  and  worked  upon — is 
surely  consecration  enough  to  form  the  peace,  nay, 
the  happiness,  of  any  good  woman's  life :  enough,  be 
it  ever  so  solitary,  to  sustain  it  until  the  end. 

In  what  manner  such  a  conviction  should  be 
carried  out,  no  one  individual  can  venture  to  advise. 
"Women's  work  is,  in  this  age,  if  undefined,  almost 
unlimited,  when  the  woman  herself  so  chooses.  She 
alone  can  be  a  law  unto  herself;  deciding,  acting 
according  to  the  circumstances  in  which  her  lot  is 
placed. 

And  have  we  not  many  who  do  so  act  ?  "Women 
of  property,  whose  name  is  a  proverb  for  generous 
and  wise  charities — whose  riches,  carefully  guided, 


304  Growing  Old 

flow  into  innumerable  channels,  freshening  the  whole 
land,  Women  of  rank  and  influence,  who  use  both, 
or  lay  aside  both,  in  the  simplest  humility,  for  labours 
of  love  which  level,  or  rather  raise,  all  classes  to  one 
common  sphere  of  womanhood.  And  many  others, 
of  whom  the  world  knows  nothing,  who  have  taken 
the  wisest  course  that  any  unmarried  woman  can 
take,  and  made  for  themselves  a  home  and  a  position: 
some,  as  the  Ladies  Bountiful  of  a  country  neighbour- 
hood ;  some,  as  elder  sisters,  on  whom  has  fallen  the 
bringing  up  of  whole  families,  and  to  whom  has 
tacitly  been  accorded  the  headship  of  the  same,  by 
the  love  and  respect  of  more  than  one  generation 
thereof;  and  some  as  writers,  painters,  and  profes- 
sional women  generally,  who  make  the  most  of  the 
special  gift  apparently  allotted  to  them,  believing 
that,  be  it  great  or  small,  it  is  not  theirs  either  to  lose 
or  to  waste,  but  that  they  must  one  day  render  up  to 
the  Master  His  own,  with  usury. 

"Would  that,  instead  of  educating  our  young  girls 
with  the  notion  that  they  are  to  be  wi  ves,  or  nothing 
—matrons,  with  an  acknowledged  position  and 


Growing  Old.  305 

duties,  or  with  no  position  and  duties  at  all — we 
could  instil  into  them  the  principle  that,  above  and 
before  all,  they  are  to  be  women — women,  whose 
character  is  of  their  own  making,  and  whose  lot  lies 
in  their  own  hands.  Not  through  any  foolish  inde- 
pendence of  mankind,  or  adventurous  misogamy :  let 
people  prate  as  they  will,  the  woman  was  never  born 
yet  who  would  not  cheerfully  and  proudly  give  her- 
self and  her  whole  destiny  into  a  worthy  hand,  at  the 
right  time,  and  under  fitting  circumstances — that  is, 
when  her  whole  heart  and  conscience  accompanied 
and  sanctified  the  gift.  But  marriage  ought  always 
to  be  a  question  not  of  necessity,  but  choice.  Every 
girl  ought  to  be  taught  that  a  hasty,  loveless  union, 
stamps  upon  her  as  foul  dishonour  as  one  of  those 
connexions  which  omit  the  legal  ceremony  altogether; 
and  that,  however  pale,  dreary,  and  toilsome  a  single 
life  may  be,  unhappy  married  life  must  be  tenfold 
worse — an  ever-haunting  temptation,  an  incurable 
regret,  a  torment  from  which  there  is  no  escape  but 
death.  There  is  many  a  bridal-chamber  over  which 


306  Growing  Old. 

ought  to  be  placed  no  other  inscription  than  that 
well-known  one  over  the  gate  of  Dante's  hell : 

"  Lasciate  ogni  speranza  voi  chi  entrate." 

God  forbid  that  any  woman,  in  whose  heart  is  any 
sense  of  real  marriage,  with  all  its  sanctity,  beauty, 
and  glory,  should  ever  be  driven  to  enter  such  an 
accursed  door ! 

But  after  the  season  of  growing  old,  there  comes, 
to  a  few,  the  time  of  old  age ;  the  withered  face,  the 
failing  strength,  the  bodily  powers  gradually  sinking 
into  incapacity  for  both  usefulness  and  enjoyment 
I  will  not  say  but  that  this  season  has  its  sad  aspect 
to  a  woman  who  has  never  married ;  and  who,  as  her 
own  generation  dies  out,  probably  has  long  since  died 
out,  retains  no  longer,  nor  can  expect  to  retain,  any 
flesh-and-blood  claim  upon  a  single  human  being. 
When  all  the  downward  ties  which  give  to  the  decline 
of  life  a  rightful  comfort,  and  the  interest  in  the  new 
generation  which  brightens  it  with  a  perpetual  hope, 
are  to  her  either  unknown,  or  indulged  in  chiefly  on 


Growing  Old.  307 

one  side.  Of  course  there  are  exceptions  where  an 
aunt  has  been  almost  like  a  mother,  and  a  loving  and 
loveable  great-aunt  is  as  important  a  personage  as 
any  grandmother.  But  I  speak  of  things  in  general. 
It  is  a  condition  to  which  a  single  woman  must  make 
up  her  mind,  that  the  close  of  her  days  will  be  more 
or  less  solitary. 

Yet  there  is  a  solitude  which  old  age  feels  to  be  as 
natural  and  satisfying  as  that  rest  which  seems  such 
an  irksorneness  to  youth,  but  which  gradually  grows 
into  the  best  blessing  of  our  lives;  and  there  is 
another  solitude,  so  full  of  peace  and  hope,  that  it  is 
like  Jacob's  sleep  in  the  wilderness,  at  the  foot  of  the 
ladder  of  angels. 

"  All  things  are  less  dreadful  than  they  seem." 

And  it  may  be  that  the  extreme  loneliness  which, 
viewed  afar  off,  appears  to  an  unmarried  woman  as 
one  of  the  saddest  of  the  inevitable  results  of  her  lot, 
shall  by  that  time  have  lost  all  its  pain,  and  be 
regarded  but  as  the  quiet,  dreamy  hour  "  between  the 


308  Growing  Old. 

lights ;"  when  the  day's  work  is  done,  and  we  leac 
back,  closing  our  eyes,  to  think  it  all  over  before  we 
finally  go  to  rest,  or  to  look  forward,  in  faith  and 
hope,  unto  the  Coming  Morning. 

A  finished  life — a  life  which  has  made  the  best  of 
all  the  materials  granted  to  it,  and  through  which,  be 
its  web  dark  or  bright,  its  pattern  clear  or  clouded, 
can  now  be  traced  plainly  the  hand  of  the  Great 
Designer;  surely  this  is  worth  living  for?  And 
though  at  its  end  it  may  be  somewhat  lonely;  though 
a  servant's  and  not  a  daughter's  arm  may  guide  the 
failing  step ;  though  most  likely  it  will  be  strangers 
only  who  come  about  the  dying  bed,  close  the  eyes 
that  no  husband  ever  kissed,  and  draw  the  shroud 
kindly  over  the  poor  withered  breast  where  no  child's 
head  has  ever  lain;  still,  such  a  life  is  not  to  be 
pitied,  for  it  is  a  completed  life.  It  has  fulfilled  its 
appointed  course,  and  returns  to  the  Giver  of  all 
breath,  pure  as  He  gave  it.  Nor  will  He  forget  it 
when  He  counteth  up  His  jewels. 

On  earth,  too,  for  as  much  and  as  long  as  the 


Growing  Old. 


3°9 


happy  dead,  to  whom  all  things  have  long  been  made 
equal,  need  remembering,  such  a  life  will  not  have 
been  lived  in  vain : 

w  Only  the  memory  of  the  just 
Smells  sweet,  and  blossoms  in  the  dust," 


THE  EHD. 


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